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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO i 
DALLAS • ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 





■ 





PEGGY STUDIED WHILE SHE WORKED 




PEGGY OF 

ROUNDABOUT LANE 


EDNA „ TURPIN 

AUTHOR OF “HONEY SWEET,” 
“HAPPY ACRES,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED BY 
ALICE BEARD 



Jgeto Uoife 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1917 



Copyright, 1917 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
Set up and Electrotyped. Published September, 1917 



SEP 271917 


©CI.A476251 

Tu.l- 


TO MY DEAR LITTLE FRIENDS 


JEAN BLAIR, 
AGNES GREGORY, 

AND 

RUTH “EDNA” HARRIS 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Peggy studied while she worked . . Frontispiece • 

FACING 

PAGE 

“Oh! What have they done?” asked Peggy . 86 

“Tell about butterflies you’ve seen,” Anne in- 
sisted 190^ 

Peggy ran to the door 280 



PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT 
LANE 


CHAPTER I 



HE children were going home. The 


stream that flowed from Westside School 


went mainly along the eastern and north- 
ern streets of Georgetown, Washington’s old 
west end. There was a little trickle southward 
to tenements over M Street shops and warehouses 
along the Potomac river. The westward flow was 
even smaller. Hardly a dozen children went be- 
yond Georgetown College; and of the dozen, four* 
were little Callahans. 

Susie Callahan was in front, hopping from 
sill to sill of the trolley bridge that spanned the 
ravine behind the college. In her dingy clothes, 
with her bright eyes and her air of cocksureness, 
she looked like a little English sparrow. 

“Mamie! Sissie!” she called to her two com- 
panions. “Hurry, hurry and get your paper 


dolls.” 


2 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


“Girls — ugh! Paper dolls — ow! Here, boys, 
let's play Cops and Robbers till time to sell 
papers." 

The speaker was John Edward — familiarly 
known as Jed — one of the Callahan twins. He 
and Elmore were alert, terrier-like little fellows, 
with stiff disorderly hair and outstanding ears. 
They had friendly blue eyes and big mouths that 
spread in smiles at the least excuse, and they 
seemed puzzlingly alike till you found out how 
different they were. Jed was the sturdier and 
quicker and firmer, and was followed by Elmore 
like a shadow. 

The other boys — Albert Fischer, Tom Croye, 
Tim Rogan, and Mike McGinley — agreed eagerly 
to Jed's proposal. Cops and Robbers is a favorite 
game in Georgetown where there are so many 
byways in which the fleeing “robbers" can dodge 
the pursuing “cops." Jed and Mike began to 
choose sides and discuss bounds. 

Peggy Callahan, who was behind with Molly 
Rogan, heard them and frowned. 

“Jed! Elmore!" she called severely. “It's 
straight home you ought to come and study for 
your hist'ry test." 

Jed made a grimace that was reflected on El- 
more's face. They expected and resented and en- 
joyed Peggy's disapproval. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 3 

Peggy was a bright, ambitious, untidy girl of 
thirteen, — pretty, especially when smiling lips 
and dimpling cheeks made the best of her rather 
heavy features. She had a ruddy fair face, clear 
blue eyes, and dark hair that on damp days clung 
in adorable little curls around her pink ears and 
soft, plump neck. Her greatest troubles in life, 
so far, were the freckles that speckled her nose, 
and the difficulties of Eighth Grade English exer- 
cises. 

Beyond the bridge across the ravine, the chil- 
dren turned from the trolley track and followed 
Roundabout Lane. It climbed and curved north- 
ward and westward in the semicircle of Holly 
Hill, passing front and back doors of six or seven 
small houses scattered among gnarled fruit trees, 
grape vines, rose bushes, and ragged boxwood 
hedges, — relics of a mansion that had once oc- 
cupied the hillside. At last the lane turned south- 
ward to get to a tumbled-down house and a gabled 
cottage on the hilltop, and finally dropped back 
downhill to the trolley track. 

Holly Hill and Roundabout Lane, remember, 
are in the city of Washington. The city paused 
a long time at Georgetown College, overlooking 
the ravine and the rugged little hill on which it 
was impossible to lay out orderly streets and 
buildings. At last it passed them by and settled 


4 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

down and spread out in Riverheight on the gentle 
slopes beyond the second ravine. Holly Hill was 
left to country-loving poor folks, — the Callahans 
and Rogans and Croyes and McGinleys and 
Fischers, — who want elbow room and space for 
potatoes and roses. 

Instead of following Roundabout Lane with 
the other children, Peggy climbed a steep, rough 
little path that brought her quickly to the gabled 
cottage on the hilltop. She sat down on the porch 
step, jerked out a book, and began to study her 
civics lesson, loudly and severely. When Jed 
came around the house corner and saw her, he 
promptly turned his back and stuck his thumb 
over his shoulder to point out the spectacle to his 
brother. 

"Peg thinks she's so smart, she does." Elmore 
agreed with Jed's unspoken opinion. 

"Come on, robbers ! The cops'll be after us in 
two minutes," shouted Jed, and scampered away, 
laughing loudly. 

Presently the chill of the late October day 
drove Peggy indoors. 

"Peggy, have you got time to help me ?" asked 
her mother, without looking up from the sewing 
machine. 

Peggy frowned. "I guess so, ma," she an- 
swered slowly. "I guess I can study my civics 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 5 

and arithmetic and hist’ry and spelling to-night.” 
She made the list as long and difficult as possible. 

Her mother hesitated and looked twice at the 
heap of muslin on the table. Then she said, “Just 
sew the ribbon on those ruffles, whiles I make the 
sleeves. ’T won’t take you long.” 

Peggy received the ribbon and muslin in re- 
luctant fingers and began to sew slowly and care- 
lessly. 

For awhile Mrs. Callahan rattled steadily on 
the heavy old machine. Then she paused a min- 
ute. She drew a tired, uneven breath and 
frowned at Peggy. 

“Land’s sake, child,” she said sharply, “hurry 
up! Go with a stitch and a promise. And sit 
where you can keep your eye on the window, 
whiles I’m at the machine. I wouldn’t have Doc- 
tor Malone catch me machine-sewin’, not for 
money. And him sayin’ express I mustn’t.” 

At that Peggy looked troubled. “I wish you 
wouldn’t, ma,” she said, sewing faster. “I could 
do that, if you’d let me. I could gather the ruf- 
fles and sew them on.” 

“Oh, your sewin’ !” Mrs. Callahan said, laugh- 
ing. And when she laughed, her hazel eyes dark- 
ened and sparkled and her merry crooked mouth 
ran toward the dimple that popped out on her 
left cheek. It would have taken, then, a more 


6 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


experienced eye than Peggy’s to see that care and 
illness were ravaging her face. 

“Ruffles all of a pucker here and skimped there 
and sewed on ever’ which way!” went on Mrs. 
Callahan. “This ain’t plain sewin’, like you can 
do, child. You run that ribbon on the ruffles. I’ll 
gather and sew ’em in a jiffy; and no harm done, 
if doctor don’t catch me.” 

Mrs. Callahan began again to stitch rapidly on 
the machine. Peggy sat down beside the window 
and finished sewing the blue ribbon on the edge 
of one long muslin strip. Then she counted the 
other strips. 

“Whew!” she said disapprovingly. “Seven 
ruffles! And if they were teenchy-tiny wider, 
five would come to Susie’s waist. I don’t see the 
use of so many.” 

“That’s ’cause ’tain’t your party,” Mrs. Calla- 
han explained wisely. “Didn’t Kate Flannagan 
say she was havin’ five ruffles? And it’s such a 
mite little more work — what with the ribbon and 
two extry ruffles — to make Susie’s dress the 
finest.” 

“But if doctor said ” 

“He ain’t said the word of a mother pleasurin’ 
a child for her first party. Ain’t I give up takin’ 
in sewin’, for his say-so? Finish them ruffles, 
Peggy, or hand ’em over to me.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 7 

With a sigh and a frown Peggy resumed work. 
For many minutes, neither she nor her mother 
spoke. 

The sun shone through the leafless rose 
branches and patterned the uncarpeted floor with 
sunshine and shadow. The baby, sitting on the 
floor with a necklace of spools to amuse him, tried 
to catch the sunrays in his little hands and 
crowed with delight. 

The poor little room-of-much-work — bedroom, 
sitting-room, and sewing-room — was homelike 
and cheerful, like the smiling, untidy, tired 
woman. So was the room opening from it, — a 
room so tiny that there was just an alley-way be- 
tween its two beds and space at the foot of the 
beds for a table and two chairs. The sun stream- 
ing into this room shone on a child lying on the 
bed beside the west window. She had her face 
turned toward the wall and was chattering to 
herself. Suddenly she laughed aloud. 

Mrs. Callahan, smiling in sympathy, paused at 
the end of a seam. “Don’t you want the shade 
down, Lois?” she said. “The sun’s in your 
eyes.” 

“No, ma’m,” said a cheery little voice. “I like 
oein’ in the sun. Me and the Wackersons are 
havin’ a nawful good time. We were jest 
startin’ to a picnic and Mr. Wackerson he f ergot 


8 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


the lunch box and had to go back for it. The 
way he had to run to ketch the street car ! And 
him so fat and red-faced.” Again the child- 
laughter rang out. 

“I never see such a child for amusin’ herself,” 
Mrs. Callahan said, chuckling softly. 

Peggy’s thoughts were busy elsewhere. Pres- 
ently she said, “Ma, that hundred dollars will be 
’most as much as I’d make being cash girl or 
bundle wrapper. So I can go to school next year 
and take the business course, can’t I ?” 

“What? What hundred dollars?” asked her 
mother. 

“That scholarship prize I told you about,” said 
Peggy, impatiently. “Ain’t nobody in school 
ahead of me and I ain’t going to let nobody get 
ahead. Then I won’t have to stop school and go 
to work, will I? I can go to Business High 
School, can’t I?” 

“I want you should go to school,” said her 
mother. “But you know how things is. Course, 
if you got that prize ” 

“I am going to get it,” declared Peggy, con- 
fidently. “That’ll put me through next session. 
Next year maybe there’ll be another scholarship 
prize. Or something will turn up, so I can go 
another year and then one more. Then I can 
get a good-paying job. And you ” Peggy 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 9 

interrupted herself excitedly. “There he comes, 
ma. There comes doctor up the hill! — Just a 
stepping !” 

“Gi’ me the rocker, Peggy. Sit here at the ma- 
chine. Quick! Slip that ruffle under the pres- 
ser-foot. Motion like you was sewin’, but don’t 
you put in stitches for me to pull out. Hand me 
the waist. I’ll do buttonholes, so as not to be 
losin’ all the time.” Mrs. Callahan searched 
hurriedly for her thimble. 

Doctor Malone came in, as keen and wholesome 
as the breezy, sunny, autumn day. 

“How are you feeling today, Mrs. Callahan?” 
he asked with the hearty vigor that inspired mo- 
rose patients to feel and answer “Better.” 

Cheery Mrs. Callahan responded gayly. “Oh ! 
I feel like a spring onion, doctor, — strong enough 
for anything.” 

“That’s good,” laughed the doctor. “And 
Lois?” 

He strode into the little room and looked down 
at the bed-ridden child whose thin pale face 
looked paler and thinner because of the big, se- 
rious, dark eyes and the mop of thick, disorderly, 
dark hair. 

Lois had been very ill with a heart trouble, 
caused by diseased tonsils. At first there had 
been some difficulty about getting her in a hos- 


io PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


pital and then Lois had begged to stay at home. 
So here she was, past the painful and dangerous 
stage of the disease, but having to stay quietly in 
bed. 

“You couldn’t be getting on better than you 
are,” the doctor smiled down at her. 

Then he went back into the front room, sat 
down, threw one knee over the other and clasped 
the topmost with his big, capable, white hands. 
His humorous red-brown eyes were fixed on Mrs. 
Callahan while he spoke to Peggy. 

“Sewing, eh?” 

“Yessir.” 

In her embarrassment, Peggy twirled the wheel 
and zigzagged across the ruffle. She tried to re- 
sume an even course and broke the thread. Pier 
mother frowned and moved involuntarily toward 
the machine, then recollected herself, pursed her 
lips, and sat still. 

“And what were you doing, Mrs. Callahan?” 
asked the doctor, emphasizing the past tense. 

“I’m helpin’ Peggy by makin’ buttonholes, 
sir,” said Mrs. Callahan, meekly. 

“Sew on, Peggy,” the doctor exhorted mock- 
ingly. “I’m interested in seeing you manage that 
complication of fluffles.” 

“Yessir.” 

With the best of good intentions, Peggy 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE n 


caught a fold of the ruffle under the presser-foot 
and was brought to an abrupt end by the twisted 
fabric. 

“Ah ! I should say it required an expert hand. 
Is this work of yours important, Mrs. Callahan, 
— a rush order ?” 

“It's no order at all, sir,” Mrs. Callahan an- 
swered indignantly. “It's for my own Susie, go- 
in' to her first party. Would I be lettin' her go 
ragamuffin-like? It would take the sweetness out 
of icecream itself. It’s little I can buy — cotton 
ribbon and sleazy muslin — but a few extry 
stitches make a dress she'll think fine as a queen's. 
Sure, doctor, you wouldn't have me spare that 
little for a child like my Susie that's got so much 
doin'-without on the road ahead of her.” 

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He walked 
to the mantelpiece and took up a bottle. “You've 
been taking this regularly, Mrs. Callahan?” 

“To the minute, sir,” she answered truthfully. 

Dr. Malone looked her over with careful, dis- 
satisfied eyes. 

“How about your appetite ?” 

“It's— not so bad.” 

“For breakfast you ate ?” 

“We had the best of potato gravy, sir. And 
I took an extry cup o' coffee. Strong like I make 


12 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


it, it's mighty strength’nin’,” Mrs. Callahan said 
ingratiatingly. 

"You have not been taking the milk and eggs 
I ordered.” 

Dr. Malone stated the fact so positively that 
Mrs. Callahan merely faced him with another 
fact. 

"With me not takin’ in sewin’, there’s no 
money for extrys, sir. And eggs that high !” 

The doctor sat down again and looked her 
squarely in the face. 

"I told you three months ago, Mrs. Callahan, 
that you would not have at home what you need 
— rest and proper food. You insisted on making 
the trial. You are — are not getting better. Now 
you must go to the hospital. Of course, it will 
take you longer to get well than if you had gone 
three months ago. If you postpone much longer,” 
he paused impressively, "I’ll not answer for the 
consequences.” 

"Wh — what’s the matter ?” Peggy gasped. 

"Incipient tuberculosis.” 

Mrs. Callahan laughed weakly. "You’re thun- 
derin’ over heads of Peggy and me, with them 
big words. Pshaw, doctor! I ain’t nothin’ but 
a little run down — underfleshed, and a hackin’ 
cough is got a grip on me. You said yourself I’ll 
soon be good as new.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 13 

“Yes.” The doctor agreed gravely. “I said 
that three months ago. With proper treatment. 

But if you wait three months longer ” He 

shook his head doubtfully. “I assure you, Mrs. 
Callahan, there is no time to be lost. Fortunately, 
there is a vacancy at the hospital and I have ar- 
ranged for you to go there to-morrow.” 

“To-morrow ! I can't.” 

“You must.” 

“Why, — but with the ironin' not finished and 

the week's mendin' all to be done. And ” 

Mrs. Callahan looked helplessly at Susie's unfin- 
ished frock. “My children need me, doctor,” she 
pleaded. 

The doctor agreed. “Your children need you, 
Mrs. Callahan. You ! More than they need ironed 
and mended clothes and folderols like this.” He 
flicked the shabby finery with a man's contemptu- 
ous finger. “You must face the situation. If you 
go on this way too long — and none of us can say 
how much longer that will be — doctors and medi- 
cine can't help you. Instead of bearing your 
family's burdens, you'll probably be a burden the 
remainder of your life. I ask you to stop, for a 
few weeks or months, the life that is killing you, 
and go to the hospital and give us a chance to 
cure you. Fresh air and rest and the milk and 


14 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

eggs will set you up again. And you’ll come home 
a well woman.” 

“Oh, how grand !” exclaimed Peggy, squeezing 
her mother’s workworn right hand in both her 
strong young ones. 

“But Johnnie and the children,” faltered Mrs. 
Callahan. 

“We have made satisfactory arrangements for 
the children,” said the doctor. “Miss Hartman 
of the Associated Charities came to my office this 
morning. She has arranged everything. Miss 
Drayton will take charge of Peggy ” 

“Of me?” questioned Peggy. 

“Yes; you will stay at her home.” 

Involuntarily Peggy clapped her hands. “With 
dear, darling Anne Lewis !” she exclaimed. “It’ll 
be like a party every day. And nothing to bother 
my studying.” She glanced distastefully at 
Susie’s frock; then, ashamed of seeming selfish, 
she asked, “And the other children?” 

“The two older boys will be boarded with Mrs. 
Rogan,” said the doctor. “Lois will be put in a 
hospital where she’ll have the best of care.” 

A protesting wail came from the adjoining 
room. “Don’t want to go to no hosp’al. I ain’t 
goin’ to leave my Wackersons.” 

Unheeding the interruption, the doctor went 
on, “Susie and the two youngest children will be 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 15 

taken care of at the Cloyd Home. Surely you are 
not hesitating, Mrs. Callahan. Don’t you under- 
stand what this means for your health — and 
life?” 

“There’s Johnnie, sir,” Mrs. Callahan faltered. 

“Your husband? He can board with a neigh- 
bor. Or stay at homeland take care of himself.” 

“Johnnie can stand a powerful heap of lookin’ 
after,” Mrs. Callahan said. She was deprecatory, 
but positive. “I can’t leave him to his lonesome.” 

“Nonsense !” said the doctor. “Well, Mrs. Cal- 
lahan, I must go. Shall I telephone Miss Hart- 
man you’re a sensible woman, and she can go 
ahead with her plans for to-morrow, — or, say 
Saturday, to give you a little more time?” 

“If it wasn’t for Johnnie ” said Mrs. Cal- 

lahan. “But I can’t, sir. I just can’t and won’t 
leave him to himself. Not long as I’m livin’.” 

Dr. Malone was not Irish and red-headed for 
nothing. 

“You’re a foolish, wicked woman, Mrs. Calla- 
han!” he flared out. “I wash my hands of you 
and the consequences. You needn’t send for me 
again. Go to the dispensary. Send for the city 
doctor. Good-day and good-by to you.” 

Two little hands clutched his arm, and brought 
him to a momentary standstill. 

“Don’t be mad, doctor dear,” implored Peggy. 


16 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


“We — she Do you think Is she so bad?” 

“She’ll get well, if she goes to the hospital,” 
said the doctor. “If you could get her to go ” 

“She’ll go; oh, she’ll go! Won’t you, ma?” 
Peggy turned pleadingly to her mother, as the 
doctor strode away. 

Mrs. Callahan’s lips set in a firm line. She 
looked ill and worn, but unchangeably resolute. 

“I ain’t never goin’ to leave your pa by him- 
self,” she answered. “It would be same as mak- 
in’ a will and leavin’ him to the gang. And I’m 
goin’ to finish this dress. Shan’t nothin’ spoil 
Susie’s first party. Peggy, will you finish sewin’ 
on that ribbon or have I got it to do ?” 


CHAPTER II 


T HE next morning, a girl tripping blithely 
around a Georgetown street corner 
bumped into another girl who was walk- 
ing slowly, with downcast eyes. 

Two “Ohs” blended into one. Then came in 
the same breath, “Do pardon me !” “ ’Scuse me !” 

With the next breath it was “Well, now, will 
you look who’s here? Peggy!” “Oh, you, Anne 
Lewis!” 

You will see and hear so much of this friend 
of Peggy’s that we may as well pause now and 
tell you about her. Anne Lewis was an orphan 
whom a seeming chance had brought into the 
lives of two Washington ladies, Miss Sarah Dray- 
ton and her sister, Mrs. Patterson. After Mrs. 
Patterson’s death, Miss Drayton made a home 
for her sister’s husband and his only child, Pat, 
now a manly fellow of sixteen. To this home 
Anne had come, after many varying fortunes, to 
be the dear daughter of the house. 

She and Peggy had once been classmates, but 
a session of careful tutoring by a cousin in Vir- 
1 7 


18 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


ginia had put Anne a grade ahead and she was 
now in her first year at the High School. She 
loyally and cordially kept up the acquaintance 
with the Callahans, who had been closely con- 
nected with the ill and good fortunes of earlier 
days. 

Holding both of Peggy’s hands, Anne amplified 
her apology. “It’s so hard for me to remember 
not to do a thing till after I do it,” she said. “Of 
course I know better than to dash around a cor- 
ner like that. Didn’t I hurt you, Peggy? Are you 
sure? Oh, I bumped your nose! It’s red!” As 
the words were on her lips, she saw that Peggy’s 
eyes also were red. It was too late now to ignore 
these signs of distress and leave Peggy the choice 
of speaking or keeping silent. “It — it isn’t any- 
thing very bad, is it, Peggy dear?” Anne asked 
solicitously. 

Peggy’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I was 
meaning to come to High School to see you at 
recess,” she said unsteadily, “and tell you I can’t 
come to spend the day to-morrow. I’m awful 
sorry. But I’m to mind the children. Take them 
for a picnic.” 

“I’m sorry, too. But you’ll come some other 
day. Do you know, I think sometimes put-off 
parties are the nicest? It’s such fun looking for- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 19 

ward to them. And you’ll have a beautiful time 
to-morrow, I know. Picnics are so lovely.” 

The cloud on Peggy’s face did not lighten at 
Anne’s pleasant words. 

“You see, ma isn’t so well,” Peggy explained. 

“Oh! is she in-the-bed sick?” asked Anne, anx- 
iously. 

“No; not that.” 

“Then I don’t reckon she’s very bad off. 
Don’t worry, Peggy dear. Grown folks get out 
of sorts — and then they get in again, and it’s all 
right.” 

“The doctor says she’ll be all right if she goes 
to the hospital.” 

“Then she’ll go and she’ll come home well.” 
Anne, to whom this seemed a simple and happy 
solution of the trouble, smiled reassurance at 
Peggy. 

But Peggy refused to be comforted. “The trou- 
ble is about us,” Peggy explained gravely. “The 
doctor and the Charities want us to break up. 
And ma won’t hear to our being put away and 
pa being left there all lonesome. Oh, the doctor 
he got so mad ! And then the Charities lady came 
and talked to ma. And I was asked to visit. Miss 

Hartman said that Miss Drayton ” Peggy 

looked wistfully at Anne. 

“Oh! That’s what Aunt Sarah meant when 


20 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

she said I might have a surprise guest. How 
lovely ! What good times we’ll have, Peggy !” 

Peggy returned the impulsive hand-squeeze, 
but not the smile. 

“But I can’t come,” she said soberly. “Ma said 
she couldn’t and she wouldn’t have us break up. 
There’s pa. We talked all over and ’round it last 
night. And Miss Hartman talked to pa. Last, 
ma said she’d go— making no promise to stay— 
if pa and all of us stay at home and I make a try 
at keeping house. So she’s going to-morrow. 
And I’m to take the children picnicking, so they 
won’t make an upsetment when she goes. Pa 
gave me ticket money for the bunch of us to go 
to Chain Bridge, — all but Lois and Dan. All the 
neighbors will see to Lois, and Mrs. Hicks’ll 
take care of Danny-boy.” 

“Just think!” said Anne. “Your mother is go- 
ing away, to come back well, and you all will have 
a good time picnicking. I don’t see anything to 
worry about.” 

“There ain’t no good time in it for me,” said 
Peggy, dolefully. “The children are just crazy 
about going to hunt nuts. Ma and pa have told 
so much about the nutting parties they had when 
they were children in the country. Susie and 
Finn — and half-way Jed and Elmore — believe 
they’re going out in the woods and get heaps and 


21 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

basketfuls of nuts — picking them up like they did 
on the street one day when a colored lady’s bag 
burst. And they’ll go there and be disappointed 
about the nuts. And then they’ll come home and 
be disappointed about ma’s being gone.” 

P ^§7 ended with a sigh and Anne sighed with 
her. 

“I see,” said Anne. 

Peggy, having rolled her burden for the minute 
on her friend’s shoulders, stood watching Anne 
who, absorbed in thought, was as motionless as 
a poised butterfly. Suddenly her hazel eyes 
twinkled and her fair eager face broke into a 
smile so irresistibly gay that Peggy laughed, with- 
out at all knowing what was pleasing or amus- 
ing Anne. This sudden, contagious glee was one 
of Anne’s charms. 

“It will never do for the children not to have 
a beautiful day,” she said. “As you can’t come 
to lunch, I am going to ask Aunt Sarah to let me 
take the lunch to you and we’ll all have a lovely 
picnic. Perhaps Pat will go with us. I’ll ask him. 
Won’t that be splenlightful?” 

Peggy uttered an exclamation of joyful assent, 
but further discussion of the subject was pre- 
vented by the tinkle of the school bell. 

“Ugh! I’ve got a cooking-school lesson,” 


22 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


Peggy said, frowning at the bag dangling from 
her arm. “Hateful thing! I ’spise it!” 

“Good-by !” called Anne. “IT1 see Aunt Sarah 
at noon recess. Meet you after school.” Then 
she opened a book and, on her way to the High 
School, made a hasty review of confusing “ie” 
and “ei” words. For the moment, they were the 
most important things in the world to Anne, for 
her interested attention was apt to be fixed on 
what was immediately at hand. 

But poor Peggy’s mind wandered sadly. Miss 
Ellis not only reproved her for inattention, but — * 
unusual and mortifying event — required her to 
recopy her carelessly written receipt. 

It seemed to Peggy that the school day would 
never drag to an end. When the clock hand 
crawled near three, she strapped her books to- 
gether and sat in unusual and impatient idleness. 

“Attention !” Miss Ellis said at last. The pu- 
pils rustled into order and she went on, “Please 
put all books and papers in order, as if you were 
to be dismissed at once.” 

Peggy’s countenance fell, for she knew by ex- 
perience that the “as if” boded delay. 

“Then,” continued Miss Ellis, “we will proceed 
to the assembly hall where Mr. Barnes is expect- 
ing us. Order ! Stand ! One, two, — forward !” 

They marched into the assembly hall, with the 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 23 

other pupils of the school. On the platform with 
Mr. Barnes, there was a stranger, a bulky man 
in amazing checked clothes. Beside him, Mr. 
Barnes, with his brown clothes matching his 
brown eyes and his brown pointed beard, looked 
even more dapper than usual. In a few crisp 
pleasant sentences, the principal introduced the 
guest, — their distinguished fellow-citizen, Mr. 
Dickson, who came to tell them about a prize he 
was offering to the pupils of the city schools. 

Mr. Dickson came forward and acknowledged 
the introduction with a smile which made his 
mouth seem merely one of the creases of his 
many-folded double chin. He pushed down on 
his nose the spectacles which shielded his eyes. 
Then he fingered the massive gold watch-chain 
which crossed his portly waist, and passed a fat 
beringed hand across his shiny bald head. At 
the end of thirty silent seconds, he had the atten- 
tion of every child in the room. 

Jed Callahan put his hand to his mouth and cov- 
ered a pretended cough. “ Ain't he the gink?” 
he whispered behind this shelter. “If I was a 
fly, sure I would choose his head for my skatin' 
rink.” 

“Keep the stillness!” reprovingly said the class- 
mate whom he addressed, — fair, sturdy, orderly- 
minded Albert Fischer. 


24 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“My young friends and fellow-citizens, includ- 
ing the girls,” began Mr. Dickson, and then he 
stopped to mop his brow and rub his palms with 
his handkerchief. He looked so embarrassed and 
so friendly that the pupils unexpectedly and 
cheeringly clapped their hands. Thus encour- 
aged, Mr. Dickson plunged forward in his speech. 
The big political boss was, after all, wonderfully 
schoolboyish. In spite of his shyness and stage 
fright, he had a pleasant childlike vanity in ad- 
dressing school children and putting himself be- 
fore them as an American example. 

He always began, as now, by telling about his 
start as a grocer’s boy, and how industry and 
economy and perseverance had brought him “up 
to where I am now,” — the “where” being evi- 
denced by the sparkling rings and massive chain 
and expensive gaudy clothes. 

Then he discoursed about the “grand country” 
and the “great and lovely city” which had given 
his opportunities, and about his interest and af- 
fection for the young folks who were starting to- 
day where he started yesterday. And then he 
came to the prize he was offering to the city school 
children, a prize that one must deserve — oh, 
greatly! — to win it, “and yet,” Mr. Dickson said, 
chuckling, “the thing is like lightning and you 
can’t tell where it is going to strike.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 25 

The children looked interested, but mystified. 

“It is a Carnegie kind of prize,” he explained. 
“A fellow can’t just sit on a wharf and make up 
his mind to save a drowning man. Oh, no! 
Things don’t happen that way. But one day he 
goes out fishing and a sudden gale upsets a boat 
near him and presto! there are a lot of fellows 
beating the water like fans. He doesn’t think of 
medals or of anything but of getting the guys out 
before they swallow all of the river they can hold 
and go down to the fishes. He gets a Carnegie 
medal because he was brave and level-headed and 
was equal to his chance when it came. 

“That’s the kind of prize I am offering. Three 
gentlemen” — He named three men prominent in 
public life — “have kindly agreed to act as com- 
mittee and, at the end of this school year, award 
this prize to the pupil in the Washington City 
school who in their opinion has performed the 
most heroic deed. And what is the prize? Why, 
that boy or that girl gets a medal of solid gold, 
with his name on it and why it is given, and he 
gets besides a hundred dollars in cool hard cash. 
And here’s hoping each one of you will win the 
prize.” 

With this Irishism, Mr. Dickson concluded his 
speech that excited a friendly, surprised, happy 


26 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


disorder which Mr. Barnes took some minutes to 
subdue. At last the pupils were dismissed and 
Peggy ran to meet Anne. 

“I’ve been waiting for you a very, very long 
time,” said Anne. “What's the matter? You're 
never kept in.” 

“We had to go to assembly,” explained Peggy, 
“to hear a man tell about a prize he’s offering. 
A hero prize, a hundred dollars and a medal. I 
wish Jed or Elmore could put out a fire or stop a 
runaway horse, and get it. That hundred dollars, 
with my scholarship — Gee whiz! We'd be the 
richest folks in Georgetown.” 

“Maybe one of your boys will get it,” said 
Anne. “Oh, it's a splendid prize ! Mr. Dickson 
told about it this afternoon at our school.” 

“It's same as the scholarship,” said Peggy. 

“In money,” agreed Anne. “But lots bigger 
other ways. It's the greatest honor any one could 
have.” 

“Maybe you'll get it,” suggested Peggy. 

“Or maybe you will,” laughed Anne. “Oh, 
Aunt Sarah thinks our picnic plan is 
lovely and she has made it better still. She has 
been wishing to go to Great Palis while the 
weather is so fine. She and Pat are going with us 
to-morrow. Oh, it is so lovely at Great Falls and 
we are going to have such a good, good time !” 


CHAPTER III 


S ATURDAY was a sunny, crisp morning 
that encouraged the picnic preparations in 
two Georgetown homes. 

One was the gabled red-brick Patterson mam 
sion on Q Street. Across its narrow front lawn 
was a soldierly row of Lombardy poplars; a 
flagged, boxwood-edged walk led to stone steps 
in the retaining wall put in when a city street 
cut across the spacious old lawn. Beyond the 
rose garden at the rear of the house extended the 
unhindered lawn overarched by ancient elms. It 
was a gracious, old-fashioned, hospitable home, 
— too hospitable, Pat was inclined to think that 
Saturday morning when unexpected out-of-town 
guests came in and Miss Drayton had to give up 
her plan of accompanying the children to Great 
Falls. 

For a while she demurred at letting them go 
with a party of children only. 

Anne begged earnestly to be allowed to go: 
surely she and Pat could be trusted to look after 
themselves; and Peggy was so in the habit of 
27 


28 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

taking care of the younger children that she was 
as good as a grown-up. 

At last Miss Drayton yielded to the entreaties, 
and Pat and Anne set off with great glee and 
with packages of food which tasked their carry- 
ing ability. In the place of honor on top of the 
lunch basket, Pat put a large, well-filled paper 
bag which made him and Anne giggle whenever 
they looked at it. 

In the little gray cottage on Holly Hill, the 
Callahans were busy preparing for what was to 
be a more eventful day than the youngsters 
dreamed. They were up early and wished to start 
the minute breakfast was over. But Mrs. Calla- 
han sent Jed and Elmore into the kitchen for a 
strenuous toilet and she scrubbed Finn while 
Peggy dressed herself and helped Susie. 

The neighbors were running in and out, in ex- 
citement which all the children except Peggy asso- 
ciated with the picnic. 

Mrs. Rogan waddled up the hill two or three 
times and stood around in the way, repeating that 
she would always be ready to help Peggy, and 
Mrs. Callahan must not worry about anything. 
Of course you could never know what would hap- 
pen, especially when you had to leave so many 
little children that were careless about fire and 
things. But she must not worry. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 29 

“She’s a well-meanin’ woman, is Mrs. Rogan,” 
Mrs. Callahan said quizzically, gazing after the 
pudgy figure in the soiled gingham wrapper. 
“Peggy, you mind how kind she is and how touchy 
she is, and you keep out of the fusses of her and 
Mrs. McGinley. Kate McGinley is — is here, 
bless the heart of her!” 

Mrs. McGinley had a breezy way of getting in 
before you knew she was coming. She had a 
keen, dark, ugly face, like her son Mike’s, — quick 
to break in smiles or frowns. She went to the 
sewing machine and picked up a bundle of unfin- 
ished garments. 

“Top of the morning to you,” she said. “It’s 
not a thing I have to be doing this day ; so, if you 
don’t mind, I’ll finish the boys’ shirts and this 
dress Susie may be needing next week. I’ll run 
in again after the children start.” With the last 
word she was out of the door on her way home. 

“Poor Kate! If just she didn’t have the gun- 
powder temper !” said Mrs. Callahan. “She has 
the best heart in the world. She and Mrs. Rogan 
both say they’ll look out for Lois. You pull the 
window shade up high every mornin’, Peggy, so 
Lois can wave to the neighbors, if she wants any- 
thing. And, Peggy ” Mrs. Callahan went on 

with instructions about the food and the house 


30 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

and the children, — most of all, about the comfort 
and the welfare of Mr. Callahan. 

■“Keep the lamp chimbly clean, ” she said, “and 
have the newspaper handy. You tie Bud Finn 
to the bedpost a hour every time he stays out a 
minute after five o’clock. But you watch the 
clock and turn him loose before six. Don’t let 
your pa walk in on any of your scrimmages. — 
No, Jed, you ain’t goin’ to wear your new neck- 
tie. Put on your pa’s old blue striped one. El- 
more, go back and wash behinst your ears. You 
boys stop hangin’ ’round with your ears open. 
I’m talkin’ to Peggy, not to you. — And, Peggy, 
if you see your pa look restless, don’t seem to take 
no notice or say yea-nay. You are old enough 
now, Peggy, to learn ’tain’t no use to contrary a 
man. Think up something nice and pleasant to 
take up his mind. Like askin’ him to tend to 
Danny-boy while you go an errant to a neigh- 
bor’s. He’s the cuddly kind can’t nobody refuse. 

“Peggy, Peggy, child, if you just knew how to 
cook! Your pa’s a fair cook for a makeshift, but 
he ain’t never had to do it, day in, day out. What 
a man needs when he comes home from work is 
something good-smelly and satis f yin’. Le’ me 
tell you this: If things don’t go all right, I’m 
cornin’ home, — for all they say 'hospital.’ ” 

Mrs. Callahan went on with a steady stream of 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 31 

“Do” and “Don’t” to which Peggy responded al- 
most mechanically “Yessum” and “No’m.” 

“Here — in the back corner of the top shelf — 
is the special coffee,” Mrs. Callahan said, opening 
the cupboard. “It’s for your pa when he looks 
restless or down in the mouth. Oh, Peggy, if only 
you knew how to make him a cup of good, strong, 
tasty coffee!” 

“There comes Mrs. Hicks, ma,” said Peggy, 
welcoming a diversion. 

Prilla Hicks was an alert little brown woman 
who always looked as if she, like the great bas- 
kets of clothes that she carried about, had been 
freshly starched and ironed. She came now to 
offer help and advice. She would keep baby Dan 
while the other children were at school. He 
wouldn’t be a mite of trouble, just company for 
her. And whether she was at the wash tub or 
the ironing table she would be in sight of Lois’s 
window and would come any minute the child 
waved to her. She was ready and glad to do it, 
but Mrs. Callahan ought to send that child to the 
hospital. 

And Prilla would cook the Callahans’ food with 
her own, any time. “That ain’t nothin’ to say 
‘thanky’ for,” she protested. “It’s a favor to 
le’ me do it. It’s a sight easier to cook for a 
fambly than for jest one like me, and it’ll be a 


32 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

real help to me to do it. Days I got ironin’ fires, 
your oatmeal an’ sich truck can be cookin’ well 
as not, — an’ jest keep that much heat from goin’ 
to waste. It’ll take no time for Peggy to het ’em 
up. I’ll tell her what to do.” 

“Sure she will,” grumbled Peggy, when Prilla 
went back to her laundry work. “She’s the big- 
gest old advice-giver in the world.” 

“Shame on you, Peggy, to fault-find on her, 
and she such a nice, kind, smart, colored lady,” 
said Mrs. Callahan, reproachfully. “When you 
feel fretted at what she says, just mind that her 
hand is always as ready as her tongue. And you 
be sure to help out her kindness by bein’ no extry 
trouble. Keep your pots and pans clean and fix 
your victuals ready for cookin’.” 

As she talked, Mrs. Callahan was giving Peggy 
an object lesson, washing potatoes and dropping 
them in water, to have them ready to cook for 
the evening meal. 

“Just scrub your potatoes off good, like I’m do- 
in’,” Mrs. Callahan said. “Mrs. Rogan wastes 
half o’ hern, cuttin’ off a thick peelin’. She says 
peelin’s ain’t fit for nothin’ but hog slops. But 
I say you ain’t got nothin’ to leave for hog slops, 
when you got seven healthy children to feed, — 
or six and a pindlin’ little one, bless her heart!” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 33 

she ended, looking toward the bed where Lois 
lay. 

“Peggy, watch that the children don’t sit 
around with wet feet. Mind you keep the ipecac 
bottle handy and dose the children, if they’re 
hoarse. Peggy, watch out for croupy colds.” 

A shadow came over Mrs. Callahan’s face and 
was reflected on Peggy’s. The one break in the 
Callahan family circle was the death from croup 
of the little fellow who was baby before Dan. 

“I don’t see how I can go!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Callahan, as this thought brought anxious fore- 
bodings. 

“Of course you’ll go,” said Peggy. “I’ll take 
care of the children. They ain’t goin’ to have 
croup.” 

“You watch ’em good,” adjured Mrs. Callahan. 
“See they get to school in time. It’s a load off 
my mind to have Mrs. Hicks see to Lois. Thanks 
to that play of hers ’bout the Wackersons, the 
child don’t know what it is to be lonesome.” 

At last the picnickers were ready to start. 
Finn was dissatisfied because his mother refused 
to let them take the clothes basket to bring back 
nuts in. He looked sourly at the small basket 
she provided, but consoled himself with, “T’other 
basket might ’a’ been too heavy to bring back 


34 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

full. We’ll have this heapin’ up and runnin’ 
over.” 

“I’m goin’ to bring you a pocketful of nuts,” 
Elmore said to Lois. 

“I’m goin’ to bring you a big limbful and you 
can play it’s a tree,” said Jed who was never to be 
outdone. 

i The other children gave their mother the casual 
good-bys due a day’s parting, but Peggy ran 
back for a fierce embrace and a shower of kisses. 
Mrs. Callahan clasped her close and their tears 
wet each other’s cheeks. 

“Peggy, my girl, Pm dependin’ on you,” sobbed 
the mother. 

“Peggy, you Peggy, come on! Hurry up! 
You’ll make us miss the car,” called the other 
children. 

Mrs. Callahan gave Peggy a kiss and pushed 
her after the others, then held her close for a 
desperate final word. 

“My girl,” she said, “when — if the gang gets 
him, keep the children in the other room. He 
don’t mean to. It’s the gang, not him.” 

Mrs. Callahan always spoke of a certain failing 
of her husband as due to “the gang.” To the 
younger children, “the gang” was an ailment like 
grip or measles — but with a certain mystery about 
it — which at times caught their father and dis- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 35 

tressed their mother. Poor Peggy was beginning 
to understand, but she answered bravely, “Yes, 
ma. I’ll do my best.” 

“Peggy, you Peggy!” 

Susie ran back, caught Peggy’s hand, and 
dragged her away. “What’s ma scolding you 
about?” she asked, looking curiously at Peggy’s 
tear-stained cheeks. 

Fortunately, answer was made unnecessary by 
the race down Holly Hill and along the trolley 
track and then downhill to the station. Ten min- 
utes later, the children were on their way to Great 
Falls. 

Anne and Pat had gone out earlier, and Anne, 
all merry excitement, met the young Callahans at 
the car-stop. 

She explained that Miss Drayton could not 
come and that the lunch baskets were in the 
charge of a kindly caretaker. “Pat?” she said 
in answer to Jed’s eager question. “Oh, yes! 
Pat came. He’s — somewhere. We’ll see him 
presently — after a while. — Oh, Peggy ! there’s the 
loveliest secret around here. I can’t tell you now, 
but you’ll find out later.” 

“Come on, come on!” called Jed, impatiently. 
“Come on ! Let’s go down the river to look for 
nuts.” 

“Oh, no!” Anne objected quickly. “Not that 


36 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

way. Wait. HI show you where to find nuts.” 

Peggy looked surprised. “What difference 
does it make where they look?” she said in a de- 
jected undertone to Anne. “All they've got to 
do is to keep on looking till they get tired. Then 
we'll call it dinner time. That's what you said.” 

“Yes, I know. But it isn’t at all that way to- 
day,” said Anne, merrily. “I can’t tell. You’ll 
see. This way, this way, this way to the nut 
trees!” She tripped up the path, waving a bas- 
ket, followed by Susie and the boys, and more 
slowly by the bewildered Peggy. 

As Anne ran up the path, she called and called 
again, “Whoo-ee! whoo-ee!” 

At last there was an answering whistle, — or it 
might have been merely a shrill bird note. Any- 
way, Anne, following the sound, turned from the 
path and scrambled up a rocky ledge, closely fol- 
lowed by the other children. As she paused un- 
certainly, the leaves of a near-by tree rustled and 
something fell rattling to the ground. 

“Nuts ! nuts ! It’s nuts !” Susie cried delight- 
edly, picking up a large English walnut. The 
other children began a diligent search which was 
rewarded by a liberal supply of nuts, — a remarka- 
ble assortment for a Virginia hillside — pecans, 
English walnuts, almonds, and Brazil nuts. 

Peggy looked amazed. “Gee! there are nuts 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 37 

here,” she said. “But I thought woods nuts had 
rough hulls you had to beat off with stones. 
That’s how we found ’em — hick’ry nuts and wal- 
nuts — the time I went with the Fresh Airers. 
And what makes ’em fall so fast?” 

“Must be squirrels,” said Susie. 

While Peggy was wondering and the other 
children were collecting the nuts with unques- 
tioning delight, there came a rattle, clatter, and 
crash in the branches and Pat Patterson rolled 
on the ground at their feet. 

“Oh, Pat! are you hurt?” cried Anne, running 
toward him. 

Pat was already on his feet. “Not a bit.” He 
reassured her by jumping up and down. 

“We thought you were a squirrel throwing us 
nuts,” chirped Susie’s disappointed voice. “And 
you’re just a boy.” 

“I’m just a boy,” Pat agreed cheerfully, “but 
there are squirrels in that tree. That’s how I 
came to fall. I leaned too far to get to the nest. 
Look here!” 

He cautiously opened a peep hole in his cap to 
which he had clung in his fall. In it was a squir- 
rel, its bright eyes shining and its frightened 
heart beating furiously. One second it was per- 
fectly still and the next second it was making a 


38 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

dash for freedom, — only to be restrained by Pat's 
firm, gentle grasp. 

“No, no ! Oh, no, my beauty !" he said. 

“Poor scared little thing!" exclaimed Anne. 

“Did he frow down my nuts?" asked Finn. 
“Why didn't you leave him stay up there?" 

“Le' me see him. Le' me put my hands on 
him," begged Elmore. “Whew! ain't he soft?" 

“Le' me hold him in my hands," implored Jed. 

Anne caressed the frightened, pretty creature, 
and then begged, “Now let him go, Pat. He's so 
scared." 

Pat refused flatly. “I'm going to take him 
home and show him to Aunt Sarah and father. 
Don't look as if you had to cry, Anne. I’ll bring 
him back. I'll turn him loose to-morrow, I 
promise you, at his own doorstep, under his own 
roof-tree. I just want to take him home to show 
him." > 

“Oh, won't you let Lois see him, too?" begged 
Peggy. “It'll be like taking the picnic to her." 

Pat promised. At mention of Lois, Jed's mouth 
drooped. “I promised to take her a limb with 
nuts on it," he said. “And there ain't any." 

“I promised her pocketfuls, and I got 'em," El- 
more said, rattling his nuts triumphantly. 

Jed looked so doleful that Anne pitied him and 
devised a pretty scheme which, with his assist- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 39 

ance, she proceeded to carry out. She selected 
a maple bough, a glory of scarlet and gold, which 
he cut off carefully. Then Anne procured a bot- 
tle of mucilage from the little shop at the car- 
stop. She took the pink and blue ribbons from 
the dainty sandwiches in her basket, cut them 
in short pieces, glued one end of each ribbon to 
a nut and tied the other end to the maple bough. 
The result was a wonderful nut-laden bough 
which was laid aside to dry. 

While the other children played hide-and-seek, 
Peggy discussed her new responsibilities with 
Anne. 

“Ma told me forty-’leven things to do,” Peggy 
said dismally. “I don’t know anything about 
cooking and I hate housework. Well, I’ll do the 
best I can. But shan’t anything bother my study- 
ing.” 

“Oh! you must win that scholarship prize. I 
know you can,” said Anne, one of whose charm- 
ing traits was a whole-hearted confidence in her 
friends. 

“Yes,” agreed Peggy, who appreciated herself. 
“Gee whiz! I’m crazy to take that business 
course and get to office work. If I don’t, I’ll have 
to be a cash girl and no telling when I’ll work 
up to sales. I’d rather be one of those high- 


40 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

toned lady office girls than anything in the 
world.” 

“Peggy thinks she’s so smart,” said Jed, who 
approached in time to hear Anne’s remark and 
his sister’s answer. “But Albert gets that 
scholarship prize. I hope he will. ’T would make 
Peggy so stuck up we couldn’t live with her. — 
Say, ain’t it time for eats?” 

“Jed! Where are your manners?” Peggy said 
sharply. 

Jed responded by thrusting out his tongue and 
making a face. 

Anne restored peace by exclaiming that it really 
was lunch time and she began to unpack the bas- 
kets. 

Such a picnic dinner as that was ! Not many 
times in their lives had the young Callahans sat 
down to such a bountiful repast, — sandwiches in 
tempting and delicious variety, pickles, olives, lit- 
tle cakes and pies, and fruit. 

When it was a physical impossibility to eat 
more, Anne and Peggy gathered up the bountiful 
remainder of the feast for the Callahans to take 
home. 

“Lois must have a picnic,” said Anne. 

“The pink icing cake is for ma,” piped up Finn. 

Peggy’s countenance fell. In a flash came a 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 41 

realization of what awaited them at the end of 
the homeward journey. 

On the crowded car, Pat found a seat for Anne 
and stood beside her, quite unconscious of the 
fact that the squirrel’s sharp teeth were at work, 
gnawing a hole in his pocket. All at once a little 
gray creature scampered up his arm and across 
the shoulder of a grizzled little woman sitting be- 
side Anne. 

“Murder ! Fire ! Death ! It’s a rat !” shrieked 
the little woman, jumping up and down. 

“Rat !” gasped the fat woman across the aisle, 
jerking her skirts around her knees and leaping 
on a seat with amazing agility. But, as the car 
rounded a curve, she lost her balance and toppled 
over, clutching at the shoulders below her. 

“Here it is!” cried Pat, making a frantic 
clutch upward. 

“Here it is !” yelled a small dapper man at the 
other end of the car, giving an excited jab with 
his cane. 

“Ouch !” cried the tall fellow beside him, whose 
toe caught the blow intended for the nimble little 
beast that was gone almost before one realized it 
was there. 

“Don’t hurt it; oh, don’t hurt it!” Anne was 
pleading. She was unheeded in the general con- 
fusion, — increased by the frantic efforts of Pat 


42 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

and Jed and Elmore to catch the little creature 
which darted to and fro, as if terror had given it 
wings. 

The conductor came from the rear platform. 

“What’s the matter here?” he demanded 
sharply. “Looks like you’ve all gone crazy. — 
Gosh, boy!” he exclaimed, looking at Jed, who 
had climbed on the back of a car seat and just 
then clutched upward, caught the empty air, and 
came down with a crash. 

The door which the conductor had left open 
presented a means of escape to the terrified ani- 
mal crouching against a projection of the car top. 
There was a flash of gray fur, a dash down the 
car and through the door, a flying leap on the 
embankment, and a rush into the woods beyond. 

“Your squirrel’s gone, Pat Patterson. I saw 
him runned up a tree,” deliberately announced 
Susie Callahan, who sat calmly in a corner during 
the confusion, guarding Lois’s nut bough which 
Jed had entrusted to her care. 

There was a volley of excited exclamations and 
laughter. Then skirts and voices resumed their 
usual level and a few minutes later the car clat- 
tered across the bridge and came to a standstill 
in the station. The small Callahans, tired and 
happy, trailed after poor Peggy to the home 
where a sad surprise awaited them. 


CHAPTER IV 


F OR days and days, the Sunday after the pic- 
nic stood out in Peggy’s memory as the 
most miserable day of her young life. The 
dismay of the children when they came home and 
found their mother gone faded into insignificance 
before the cheerless misery of that long bleak 
Sunday. 

And yet Mr. Callahan had risen to the needs 
of the occasion in a way unexpected by any one, 
least of all by his devoted wife. 

“I don’t see how you can get on without me, 
Johnnie,” she said, when she parted from him. 
“How can a man, with all them little children? 
’Tain’t reasonable to expect you to. I ain’t mak- 
in’ the hospital folks no promises. When you 
need me, say so; and doctors or no doctors, it’s 
home I’m cornin’.” 

“Sure, we can get on without you,” Mr. Calla- 
han answered promptly. “Ain’t I cooked time 
and time again, on camp trips and when you’ve 
been sick? Barrin’ fancy dishes like stewed to- 
matoes and such, I’m as good a cook as you. I 
43 


44 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

can fry and boil all right. Sure, we’ll get on first- 
rate.” 

Mrs. Callahan was surprised at her husband’s 
willingness, even eagerness, to have her go. She 
did not know that he had gone to the doctor’s 
office, and Dr. Malone had explained her condi- 
tion, emphasizing it with impatient scorn to the 
husband whose failings had thrown too heavy 
burdens on her frail shoulders. 

“She’s overworked, overworried, underfed,” 
said Dr. Malone. “If we can get her to the hos- 
pital now, we can build her up. If she doesn’t 
go — or doesn’t stay” — he emphasized that — “at 
the rate she’s going on, she’ll soon be past our 
help. It’s up to you.” 

So on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Callahan es- 
corted his wife to the hospital. And on Sunday 
morning, he went into the kitchen to prepare 
breakfast and make good his boast of how well 
they could get on without her. But things all 
came awry to his hands. It took an unbelievably 
long time to prepare that simple, unsavory meal, 
with Peggy’s inefficient help. 

While her father was frying meat and making 
coffee, Peggy warmed the oatmeal, cooked the 
day before, and set the table and cut the bread 
into uneven hunks which she put on the table 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 45 

beside the scorched bacon swimming in its own 
grease. 

After breakfast, Peggy left the unwashed 
dishes on the table and helped the other children 
dress for Sunday school. It seemed as if they 
would never get ready. By the time Jed’s hair 
was smooth, Elmore’s tie was askew; and when 
at last they were all ready, Susie upset the dish 
of bacon grease and had to have her frock 
changed. Then she cried and said Peggy jerked 
her arm and she didn’t want to go to Sunday 
school. Of course she must go. It would never 
do to fail the first day, when they had promised 
their mother they would go every Sunday while 
she was away. 

“You needn’t tell her I didn’t go,” whined 
Susie. “She wouldn’t know.” 

“While she is sick, we’ve got to do things that 
we promised,” Peggy said firmly. 

Behind time and with Susie whining protests, 
Peggy started resolutely to Sunday school. In 
spite of her efforts, the children looked very un- 
like the neat youngsters whom it was the pride of 
Mrs. Callahan’s heart to start off every Sunday 
morning. 

Sunday school, which Peggy usually accepted 
with mild interest, was warmly welcomed that 
day. It was a place where at least one of the 


46 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

leaden-footed hours could pass without any re- 
sponsibility on her part. 

The small Callahans went home with their 
spirits, like the day, dull and lowering. Peggy 
watched the skies with increasing apprehension. 
In her purse were the car tickets her mother had 
given her to take the children to the Zoo to be- 
guile the dreary afternoon. 

“And get pa to go, sayin' like you need him to 
help with Danny in the Sunday riff-raff crowd,” 
Mrs. Callahan had charged Peggy. “Give Lois 
a nickel package of peanuts and ask Mrs. Hicks 
to notice her at the window.” 

But if it rained, they couldn't go. Peggy 
checked herself. Oh, it mightn't rain! What 
was the use of worrying? 

The children returning home found Mr. Calla- 
han flushed and triumphant in the midst of pre- 
paring a dinner which he pronounced “fit for a 
king.” He couldn’t understand why women 
thought cooking such a job. This morning he 
hadn't got the hang of it. The dinner of corn 
pone, fried ham, and apples fried in ham gravy, 
was eaten with relish. Then while Mr. Callahan 
went steadily through the Sunday paper, Peggy 
washed the dishes, a labor prolonged by many 
weather-watching visits to the window. In spite 
of her hopeful predictions that it would “clear 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 47 

presently,” the sky grew gray with one cloud 
which finally dissolved in a cold drizzle. 

She had forgotten her mother’s instructions to 
send Jed and Elmore, on Saturday afternoon, to 
pick up cinders and coals from the dump heap 
and around the coal yard. She started a blaze 
with paper and bits of wood in the old Franklin 
stove, but it soon died down and the boys flatly 
refused her demands for fuel. Their father, 
frowning over his paper, paid no attention to the 
controversy. The children, unhappy and cross 
and shivering, hugged themselves in old sweaters 
and shawls. 

“Susie,” called Peggy, sharply, “stop turning 
that machine.” 

“I’m jest stitching, to sound like ma,” Susie 
said in a small voice. “Peggy, ain’t we going to 
the Zoo?” 

“In the rain? You know we ain’t,” answered 
her older sister. 

Susie, her last hope finally cast down, began to 
sob aloud. 

Lois, roused from an uneasy nap by Susie’s 
wailing, asked fretfully, “Is it the same old day?” 

Peggy looked at the clock hands, just crawling 
past three, and did not have the heart to say how 
much of the “same old day” was still ahead of 
them. She produced the package of peanuts for 


48 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Lois’s consolation, and Lois made a brief diver- 
sion by pretending that it was a box of “store- 
bought candy” and that she was giving a party. 

“Here’s a choc’late with green cream insides,” 
she announced, handing Peggy a peanut. “Jed, 
you take this pink pop-corn ball. Elmore, ’d you 
rather have a lemon stick or a peppermint? Finn 
and Dan can have hoarhound, ’cause they get 
croupy colds in bad weather. Susie — Susie’s such 
a cry baby, she’d better have an all-day sucker.” 

Susie alone refused to humor Lois’s game; she 
took all the peanuts allowed her, retired into a 
corner, and munched them in sullen silence. 

The other children clustered around Lois and 
there was great smacking of the lips. But a 
nickel package of peanuts divided among seven 
children does not last very long. The party came 
to an end and Susie, standing sniffling by the 
window, was an added damper on the gloomy 
day. 

“Come here, Susie, and let me wipe your eyes,” 
said Peggy. 

Susie shook her head. “ ’Tain’t no use,” she 
said plaintively. “Pm just goin’ to cry again.” 
And, good as her word, big tears rolled down each 
side of her quivering little nose. 

“Ain’t that just like Susie?” said Jed, disgust- 
edly. “She’s always squeezing out tears. Like 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 49 

she’s the only one. Ain’t we all lonesome to- 
gether?” 

All lonesome together! Peggy, realizing the 
truth of Jed’s words, remembered her mother’s 
parting instructions. “Keep things clean if you 
can, but sure keep ’em cheery. If you don’t, 
pa ” 

There her mother had stopped, but Peggy knew 
how to finish the sentence. She glanced quickly 
at her father who had put aside his paper and 
was walking restlessly about the room, looking 
from the chill discomfort inside to the chill dis- 
comfort outside. He paused near the rack where 
his hat was hanging. 

Peggy spoke quickly. “Pa, will you keep 
Danny from underfoot whiles I straighten up?” 
Without waiting for an answer, she caught up 
the dimpled, gurgling youngster and dumped him 
in her father’s arms. 

Then she turned to the other children, clustered 
disconsolately at the window. “Ain’t we the self- 
ishest bunch — and then some? Here we are set- 
ting around whining and grieving — and for what? 
’Cause ma, that we pertend to love so good, is 
gone to rest and get well, ’stead of staying here to 
work herself plumb to death. And she said ex- 
pressly for us to show how much we loved her 
by doing as well as we can. Now ain’t we showing 


50 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

her a lot of love? Pm going to get outside this 
selfish, whining bunch, I am. I love ma a whole 
roomful. Pm going to clean up this very minute/' 

Peggy jerked up the broom and began to sweep 
vigorously. The other children watched a min- 
ute or two, then yielded to the contagion of her 
cheerful resolution. 

Jed, who half an hour earlier had flatly refused 
to get coal, picked up the scuttle and went out 
whistling, followed by Elmore who brought back 
an armful of kindling. 

“I love ma good as you do,” whined Susie, 
watching Peggy's diligent broom. “I wish I 
could give her a roomful of love.” 

“You can give her a faceful,” said Peggy. 
“Jed's giving her a scuttleful of love and Elmore 
brought an armful. Don't you know ma says it 
gives her the gullicumflicks for you to whine? 
Maybe the gullicumflicks is a part of her being 
sick. It'll be pretty good loving for you to glue a 
smile on your face.” 

Susie wiped her eyes and stood before the mir- 
ror with her head cocked on one side, practicing 
a smile. She looked so comical that the others 
could not help laughing. It was wonderful how 
that laughter lessened the gloom of the rainy day. 

Lois added to the mirth by announcing with a 
wry face, “Well, I guess I can love ma a spoonful. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 51 

You forgot my medicine, Peggy, and I was goin’ 
to let it by — it’s so horrid bitter ! — but ma wants 
me to take it reg’lar, and so I will.” 

“Bully !” said her father. 

“A spoonful of dosing is as big a loving as a 
whole roomful of cleaning,” said Peggy. 

After the dose, she gave Lois a segment of the 
orange kept beside the medicine bottle, straight- 
ened the patchwork quilt, shook the pillow, and 
moved Lois’s cot so that the little invalid could 
watch the fire, now dancing and sparkling in the 
grate. 

“Goody! that’s like ma,” said Lois. 

“What is ?” inquired Peggy. 

“Doin’ cheer-up things, ’thout waitin’ to be 
asked. Looks like she just knows when my pil- 
low is gettin’ hard and lumpy. Ain’t the room 
nice and bright ?” 

The change in the atmosphere was due as much 
to the glow in their hearts as to the warmth of 
the fire. Instead of the fretful discontent of an 
hour before, there was the general satisfaction of 
contributing to the home welfare and of proving 
their love for their mother. 

“That’s bully wood. I found two pieces of pine 
boards. That’s why it blazed so good,” an- 
nounced Elmore. 


52 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“And I found some fine big coals. That’s keep- 
ing it going,” said Jed. 

Mr. Callahan gave a grunt of satisfaction. He 
pulled off his shoes, and stretched his feet to the 
comforting warmth of the fire. 

“Here are your slippers, pa,” said Peggy. 
“You might as well put ’em on, now we’re settled 
for the evening.” 

Mr. Callahan thrust his feet into the slippers, 
took up his newspaper again, and was soon buried 
in its pages. 

Peggy found some spools for Dan and deco- 
rated them gorgeously with red ink; she lent 
Susie a treasured package of picture post-cards; 
and when Finn said he was hungry, she brought 
him some bread and molasses. 

“It’s gettin’ toward supper time,” Mr. Calla- 
han announced with a sigh, as twilight deepened. 
He moved uneasily in his chair and looked toward 
the kitchen. “Gee ! It don’t seem no time since 
I cooked dinner.” 

“ ’Tain’t no use to do kitchen cooking to-night, 
pa,” said Peggy. “There’s some jam and sand- 
widges left from yesterday. I’ll toast some bread 
by this fire, whiles you make the coffee.” 

Supper went off fairly well, although Peggy 
scorched both her face and the toast. 

“Whew! I hate cooking!” she exclaimed. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 53 

“You don’t know it to hate it,” commented her 
father. “Not that it’s all your fault. ’Stead o’ 
makin’ you do things, your ma ’d always say: 
‘It’s less trouble to do than to tell.’ She ought to 
V learnt you.” 

“I don’t want to learn cooking,” said Peggy, 
petulantly. “Course, I want to help you, pa. But 
when I grow up, I’ll never put finger on pot or 
pan. Everything in ’em comes out wrong for 
me. I ’spise cooking-school lessons. If they 
didn’t take up so much time, I could do better in 
English, and that bothers me worst, for the schol- 
arship prize.” 

“You ain’t got no show for the prize, have 
you?” asked her father. 

“Yes, sirree,” said Peggy, proudly. “I’m head 
of everybody in the grade. Albert Fischer’s best 
sometimes in English. But I’m ahead of him in 
’rithmetic and hist’ry. Everything else we’re 
’bout even.” 

“You ain’t smart as you think you are,” scoffed 
Jed. “Bet Albert beats you.” 

“I bet he don’t,” said Peggy. “A hundred dol- 
lars ! I’ve got to get that prize. I’m going to bed 
now and get up early and write that English ex- 
ercise. Gee ! I hate it.” 


CHAPTER V 


HE first two weeks of Mrs. Callahan’s ab- 



sence dragged slowly past. Every day 


was long and lonesome, though no other 
day was quite so bad as that dismal first Sunday. 

All the children, except Lois and baby Dan, 
went to school. In the morning, Peggy left Finn 
.at the kindergarten and in the afternoon he was 
cared for at the playground until she could come 
for him. 

Prilla Hicks took daily charge of little Dan. 
She was the Callahans’ nearest neighbor, living in 
the house that shared the hilltop with their cot- 
tage. At first sight, you would have thought that 
no one did or could live in that tumbled-down old 
house. Fallen plastering covered the rickety 
worn floors ; sagging doors, broken windows, de- 
cayed shingles, and loose weatherboards left it 
open to wind and rain. 

But on the south side of the rubbish heap, there 
was a stout little shed room that was occupied by 
Prilla Hicks, who acted as caretaker and kept 
the old house from being carried off bodily for 
firewood. 


54 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 55 

Susie and Finn Callahan thought that this shed 
room was the most beautiful place in the world. 
The walls were papered with gay pictures from 
Sunday newspapers, there was a bright patch- 
work quilt on the bed, and a green wooden “chist” 
served as substitute for trunk and wardrobe. A 
strip of red carpet, rolled away under the bed on 
week days, lent its splendor on Sundays to the 
well-scrubbed floor. 

While Prilla washed and rinsed and starched 
and ironed the great piles of clothes, she sang 
and chattered to chubby, smiling little Dan, whom 
she kept tied to a bedpost or a table leg, so that 
he might be out of harm's way. In and out of 
season, she stuffed him with meats and pickles 
and sweets that would have upset the digestion 
of any baby but a Callahan. 

Prilla Hicks never put clothes on or off the 
line without smiling and beckoning at Lois and 
she often carried an apple or a cooky to the soli- 
tary, unmothered child. 

“Poor by-herself child!" Prilla said pityingly. 

But to Lois the hours were not long or lonely. 
She lay in bed day after day while the other chil- 
dren were at school, but kind neighborly eyes 
looked out for her and she had only to wave a 
handkerchief at the window to bring Mrs. Rogan 


56 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

or Mrs. McGinley or Prilla Hicks hurrying to at- 
tend to her wants. 

When she was alone, the child wandered in a 
world of her own, with an imaginary Wackerson 
family, as real to her as her own family and 
neighbors. In the cracks and crevices of the dL 
lapidated wall, Lois saw their homes and haunts. 
There in fancy she visited them and spent hours 
happily, talking to Mr. and Mrs. Wackerson and 
playing with Big Girl Jinny, Tom Boy, and Little 
Sis Mamie. 

The neighbors who pitied and tended the chil- 
dren gave least sympathy to the member of the 
family who needed most. 

Mr. Callahan had passed the limit of his pa- 
tience and was dangerously near the end of his 
endurance. Every day the household tasks grew 
more irksome to him. He loathed getting up in 
the morning to kindle the kitchen fire and prepare 
breakfast. He could hardly restrain his desire to 
kick over the kitchen stove when, missing Mrs. 
Callahan’s discreet management of dampers and 
fuel, it grew sullen and smoked and refused to 
cook. 

One morning he gave way to his wrath and 
threw his coffee cup into the kindling box. He 
had struggled a quarter of an hour to get the 
water to boil, to make the coffee. When at last 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 57 

he poured out the muddy liquid and turned to 
sweeten it — he liked four spoonfuls — the sugar 
bowl was empty. 

The next morning was even more trying. At 
breakfast time, Mr. Callahan discovered there 
was only one loaf of bread in the box. He started 
to mix some hasty hoecakes and there was no salt 
and only a handful of meal in the cupboard. 
He refused to share the children’s oatmeal and 
went to work, breakfastless, in a black rage. 
How Mrs. Callahan would have trembled if she 
could have seen him! Even Peggy, with the 
limited wisdom of her thirteen years, realized 
that this haphazard mode of living must be 
stopped. 

We’ve got to see that things are on hand for 
pa,” she announced, gazing at her father as he 
stalked away. “Le’me see what we’ve got to 
have to-day. I’ll take the money to school and 
get the things on my way home this afternoon. 
Here’s potatoes, rice, prunes, molasses. No flour. 
A little meal. Salt box empty. Salt, flour, meal ! 
How much money is in the housekeeping mug, 
Jed?” she called questioningly. 

The Callahan household funds were managed 
very simply. On each end of the mantelpiece 
was a begilt, beflowered china mug. In the one 


58 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

was deposited the housekeeping money; in the 
other was the rent money. 

Jed took down the left hand mug. “Fifteen 
cents,” he reported. 

“Fifteen cents!” Peggy repeated. “Sure that 
ain’t all.” 

“Sure ’tis. Two nickels, five pennies.” Jed 
held them out for Peggy to see. 

“There was a quarter,” she said, knitting her 
brows. 

Susie explained. “Pa had me take that quarter 
to go for bacon. One of the boys left the cup- 
board door open and Dirty Candy took the ba- 
con.” 

Dirty Candy was the Callahan cat, so named 
because Mrs. Callahan said he was just the color 
of molasses candy pulled by the boys’ grimy 
fingers. 

“Hateful thing! stealing our victuals. I’ve 
got a mind to beat him this minute,” Peggy ex- 
claimed wrathfully. 

Voices rose in one protest from the pet-loving 
children. 

“ ’Deed you won’t beat him,” said Jed, seizing 
Dirty Candy in protecting arms. 

“Sure not,” Elmore confirmed, stroking the 
cat’s ears. “He ain’t stole nothing. The door 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 59 

was open and he just took the bacon. He wanted 
it.” 

“The boys had ought to shut the door,” said 
Susie. 

“You shut up,” Jed growled. 

“Well,” said Peggy, “I’ll have to borrow from 
the rent money for the meal and things.” 

“Ain’t nothing to borrow,” Jed reminded her. 
“Pa ain’t paid in any rent money yet. It ain’t 
due for two weeks.” 

“Then I’ll have to ask pa for some money, when 
he comes home,” said Peggy, “and that frets 
him so. He says he puts more money in the mug 
every week than when ma was home and there 
ain’t never anything fit to eat in the house. — Gee ! 
it’s ’most school time. Jed, put some coal on the 
fire. You Elmore! take Danny over to Mrs. 
Hicks. I’ve got to dress Finny before I’m 
ready.” 

Peggy went .on to school, worried and resent- 
ful. Of course it was annoying to her father for 
things to be so at odds and outs. It was hateful. 
But she was not to blame. 

She thought over matters self-pity ingly, self- 
approvingly. How much she did ! She rose early 
in the morning and swept and dusted and made 
the beds. On Saturday, she did the family wash- 
ing. Before and after school, she struggled with 


6o PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


the ironing. She washed and dressed and cared 
for Dan and Finn. She helped Susie with her 
lessons. 

It was true that she hurried over and slighted 
every task, but that was because she grudged the 
time they took from her lessons. 

How much it would mean to her family if she 
could win that scholarship prize ! A hundred dol- 
lars ! Why, it took her father weeks and weeks 
to earn that much money. With that fortune, 
her mother would not have to worry about the 
rent, she could feast on milk and eggs, she 
shouldn’t do a stitch of sewing. And Peggy could 
go to school and enter, well-equipped, the ranks 
of the self-supporting. It was a worthy ambi- 
tion and Peggy was toiling faithfully to fulfill it. 

That afternoon, she hurried home from school 
and struggled with a difficult English lesson until 
the page blurred in the twilight. Then she got up 
to light a lamp. 

At sight of the dingy chimney, she recalled, 
with a little pang of self-reproach, her mother’s 
charge: “Keep the lamp bright for your pa.” 
Peggy hastily filled and cleaned it and then swept 
the room that she had neglected in the morning 
scurry to get herself and the other children ready 
for school. She felt cross and ill-used at having 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 61 


to “waste” on housework the time that she wished 
to spend in study. 

“Dan, stop scattering spools over the floor,” 
she said pettishly, sweeping the beloved spools 
into a corner. 

The little fellow looked serious and his lower 
lip drooped as if he were going to cry; all at 
once, he dimpled and smiled up at Peggy. “Dan- 
ny’ll pick ’em, up,” he cooed, toddling after his 
playthings. 

Peggy might have tried to make amends to 
Dan, if she had not been irritated just then by 
Lois’s soft little voice talking to her make-be- 
lieve friends, the Wackersons. “Oh, no, Big Girl 
Jinny ! Don’t you be coming to our house to-day. 
It’s so hateful and lonesome since ma is away. 
You’d better be glad you ain’t got a big sister, 
like Peggy, to scold you.” 

Peggy scowled at Lois. “Pick up those crumbs 
and wash your face,” she said snappishly to Finn, 
a fair solid youngster whom nothing disturbed 
so long as he had an unlimited supply of bread 
and molasses. As he trudged into the kitchen, 
munching serenely, the door dashed open and 
Jed and Elmore rushed in. 

“Ain’t you ’shamed to come so late to your 
chores?” demanded Peggy. “And gracious! 


62 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


Look at the mud you are tracking over the floor 
Pve just swept !” 

“Cross-patch !” exclaimed Jed, picking up the 
scuttle. Elmore made a face at her and scraped 
his feet on the floor before he started out for 
kindling. 

“Hateful things !” commented Peggy. Then 
she sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll start the kitchen 
fire now, so’s to have it ready for pa.” 

She poked some paper into the stove and ap- 
plied a lighted match. The paper blazed and the 
coarse kindling smoldered stubbornly. Peggy 
opened the window to let out the smoke that was 
filling the room; then she poked another piece of 
paper into the stove, and struck another match. 
Again the fire blazed and smoldered and smoked. 

Mr. Callahan was on his way to this scene of 
domestic discomfort. How he hated the duties 
which lay before him ! He was doing his weary 
best and was keeping straight — so far. His wife 
had made no appeal to him; she clearly thought 
it was impossible for him to do without her. The 
doctor’s contempt had stiffened his resolution to 
prove that he was man enough to take care of 
himself and his family. But how hard and in- 
creasingly hard was the task ! The struggles over 
the ill-cooked meals were bad enough ; even worse 
were the long cheerless evenings, with only his 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 63 

newspaper for company while the children conned 
their lessons. 

While Mr. Callahan was brooding somberly 
over these thoughts, Tim Rogan joined him on the 
homeward way. Mr. Callahan’s face brightened, 
for Tim always had a good-natured joke or a bit 
of news. They paused a minute together at the 
parting of their ways, where Mr. Callahan was 
to follow Roundabout Lane upward and Mr. Ro- 
gan was to turn off to his home on the hillside. 

“See here, my boy.” Tim gave his neighbor a 
hearty slap on the shoulder. “It’s down in the 
mouth you are. What you are needing is to get 
out and have a little fun. I’m coming by after 
supper to take you out with the boys. You’re 
as dull as dishwater, with the missis away.” 

Mr. Callahan dissented half-heartedly. “I’ve 
got things on my hands,” he said. “I can’t go.” 

“Sure but you can and you will ! Put the little 
kids to bed and leave the big kids to mind their- 
selves. It’s about seven I’ll be there,” was the 
laughing response. 

Mr. Callahan did not answer. He looked wist- 
fully after his jovial neighbor. And as he stood 
there, you saw that his blue eyes were friendly 
and childlike, and that his mouth was good- 
natured and weak, — and yet there was about his 
jaw a hint of the unalterable obstinacy of the 


64 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

slack, easy-going man. Presently, with a shrug 
of his shoulders and a scowl, he went homeward. 

Peggy was still struggling with the sullen, 
smoldering fire when Prilla Hicks came to bring 
a pot of beans she had cooked for the Callahans 
on her “ironing fire.” 

“Lawsy, Peggy!” she said. “What is you all 
doing? That ain’t no smokin’ stove. Your ma 
ain’t nuver had no trouble with it. I pity your 
poor pa when he comes to sich a mess. My 
mammy always said a smokin’ stove would drive 
the best of men to drink. What’s the matter?” 
she repeated. 

“I don’t know,” said Peggy, impatiently. “It 
didn’t use to smoke. Now it just smokes.” 

“Looks like you ought to know. Ain’t you 
studyin’ all that kind of stuff at school? Why 
don’t you know?” demanded her neighbor. 

“ ’Cause I don’t,” snapped Peggy, wiping her 
streaming eyes, and turning the damper first in 
one direction and then in the other. 

“Well, you needn’t go to experiencin’ now,” 
said Prilla, who had been making investigations 
while she questioned. “I ain’t been to school and 
learnt it outen books, but I got eyes and sense in 
my head. This stove’s all choked up — ain’t been 
cleaned since your ma went away — an’ dampers 
been opened when they ought to been shet, and 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 65 

shet when they ought to been opened. Elmore, 
give me the little stove raker. Hand me the 
scuttle, Jed. Now fetch me the long-handled 
stove duster.” She shook and rattled and scraped 
and swept. “There!” she said at last. “IPs 
ready for startin’ a fire, if you knowed how.” 

“Mrs. Hicks talks so much and so smart!” 
thought Peggy, as she watched her officious kind 
neighbor. “She’s always good-advicing. — I 
know how to start a fire as good as she does. I’ll 
show her so.” She opened the stove door. “I 
start that cooking-school fire any time,” she said 
with a superior air. “This way. And so.” And 
she proceeded deftly to put in practice her do- 
mestic science lesson. 

“Laws, child ! you did that as good as me, like 
you never studied it at school,” said Prilla, ap- 
provingly. “Well, I got to go. I bet a fire like 
this will make your pa smile on the right side of 
his mouth. And I ain’t see sich a smile on his 
face since your ma went away. A big girl like 
you ought to be doin’ the cookin’, ’stead of leav- 
in’ it to him.” 

Prilla Hicks went out, leaving the fire burning 
brightly, but a cloud on Peggy’s brow. Of course 
her father was uncomfortable. Of course he was 
unhappy. And mother said — oh, how many 


66 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


charges her mother had given for his comfort 
and happiness ! 

Mr. Callahan came in and gave a grunt of sat- 
isfaction at finding the fire burning brightly. 
Then his brow darkened at thought of the irk- 
some duties before him. He picked up a dull 
knife and began to hack off slices of meat to fry 
for supper. 

“Pa,” said Peggy, “please give Jed money to 
buy some meal and flour and salt. There ain't 
any for breakfast. And there ain't but fifteen 
cents in the housekeeping mug.” 

Mr. Callahan grumbled. “Always something 
out and no money ! This is all I’ve got to-night.” 
He held a silver coin in a reluctant hand. Then 
he tossed the money to Jed. “Get the smallest 
bag of flour. A gallon of meal. And a pound of 
salt. That’ll leave me a little change.” 

“Pa!” Lois called, “tell Jed to buy some raisins 
for me. Ma said I was to have 'em on my oat- 
meal all the time I stay in bed. And I didn't 
have none this mornin'. Peggy said they were all 
gone. Tell Jed to get some, — please.” 

Mr. Callahan scowled, but the plea of the ill 
child was not to be resisted. “Get the raisins, 
Jed,” he said. “That'll take the last cent. It's 
hard a man can't keep a few dimes of his money 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 67 

to get a little fun for himself. And he leadin’ a 
dog’s life, hangin’ over a cook stove.” 

Peggy heard his words and she understood 
them a half hour later. 

Mr. Rogan came whistling to the door and 
asked, “Ready, Callahan?” 

“No chink left,” growled Mr. Callahan. “Not 
goin’.” 

“Oh, that don’t cut no ice!” said Mr. Rogan, 
genially. “Treat’s on me.” 

“Not a bit of it,” refused Mr. Callahan. “I 
ain’t dead-beatin’ on anybody.” 

He persisted in his refusal and with a frown 
he settled down with his newspaper. 

Peggy washed dishes in thoughtful silence. If 
she hadn’t looked in the cupboard and seen what 
was lacking and asked for that money, her father 
would have had it in his pocket when Mr. Rogan 
came. He would have gone — and the gang 
would have got him again. It had been a nar- 
row escape this time. And there would be times 
in the future. What could she do? Was there 
anything? 

“A dog’s life,” he had said. “Over a cook 
stove.” No wonder he wanted to get away from 

it. 

“Wow !” she said, excitedly clapping her hands. 
“That’s splendid!” 


68 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


“ What is ? what is it ?” Lois and Susie wanted 
to know. 

Peggy pursed her lips and shook her head. “I’ll 
show you she said importantly. 


CHAPTER VI 


P EGGY could not carry out at once the plan 
that she had formed. She had to wait until 
her father put money into the housekeeping 
mug, on Saturday night. Then, as her plan was 
a secret from him, she had to let Sunday pass, for 
he was at home all day, except for an afternoon 
visit to her mother. 

By Monday, she was so impatient and excited 
that she had to share her secret with some one. 
So after school she ran by the High School and 
walked home with Anne, to confide and discuss it. 

Anne was interested and enthusiastic, and she 
and Peggy earnestly consulted each other and 
their domestic science note-books. 

“It makes you seem like a real grown-up lady, 
to be planning about housekeeping,” said Anne, 
admiringly. “It’s a lovely plan. I can hardly 
wait to know how surprised and glad your father 
is.” 

Peggy folded the list she and Anne had care- 
fully prepared. “I brought some housekeeping 
money with me,” she said. “Pm going by the 
69 


70 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

grocer’s and get these things. Then I’m going 
home and get busy.” 

She went home with several bundles and a 
dejected expression. 

“Pa says he is giving me more money than ma 
had every week,” she announced to Lois, the only 
person at home and so of necessity her confidante. 
“But it sure does go a little way in buying things.” 

“Don’t you wish you could do like Mrs. Wack- 
erson?” asked Lois. “She just takes a basket on 
her arm and goes to market and brings back 
everything they want. She has a hard time going 
up them steps— there where they are so steep — 
it’s a nawful hard pull. She says she sure is glad 
she has ’em to come down, ’stead of up, on her 
way home, when her basket is full.” 

“You’re the funniest child, Lois,” said Peggy, 
laughing. “Playing you see houses and people 
in those cracks on the wall.” 

“You can see ’em, if you look,” said Lois. 
“Anne sees ’em. There’s the house and that little 
stick-up window is in the girls’ room. See?” 

“Where the plaster is broken?” asked Peggy. 

“It’s what you can call the broken plaster if 
you want to,” allowed Lois, patiently. “It is a 
window. And those are the stairs.” She pointed 
to one zigzag crack and then to another. “The 
steepest steps go up to the market. Over on that 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 71 

wall, all the wavies there are sea waves and 
there’s a tall tower growing by the sea. There’s 
where Anne says the giants and fairies live. I 
wisht she’d come and tell me a tale about ’em. 
It’s been so long since yesterday!” Lois ended 
wistfully. 

Peggy did not answer. She had started the 
kitchen fire and she was consulting her list. “I’ll 
boil the potatoes and mash them, and boil the 
rice,” she said, checking the list on her fingers. 
“Then I’ll cook the cabbage and fry the meat. 
And then there’s the coffee to make. Ma does 
those things all at one time. How on earth does 
she see to so many things at once ?” 

Peggy washed the potatoes and put them in a 
stewpan, and she put the rice in the double boiler. 
Then she unwrapped a package and took out a 
piece of fat meat. It was hard work, with the 
dull knife and her unaccustomed hand, to hack 
it in thick, irregular slices. 

“I wish I had remembered,” she said rue- 
fully. “Ma gets the grocer to slice her bacon. 
Maybe this little knife will cut better. It looks 
sharp.” 

And it was sharp. Peggy gave it a jerk that 
sent it sideways through the meat and into her 
finger. She stopped and tied up the wound and 
then painstakingly cut the meat into little chunks. 


72 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“I never saw any cooked that way,” she said 
doubtfully. “But maybe it’ll come out all right. 
I guess I’d better put the cabbage on and then 
I’ll make the coffee.” 

But while she was grinding the coffee, she de- 
vised a different plan. 

“I’ll not have boiled rice,” she said to Lois. 
“I’ll borrow some of your raisins and to-morrow’s 
sugar and make a pudding. Ma makes such good 
ones! I don’t know just how much of anything 
she puts in them ” 

“She puts in orange peel,” volunteered Lois. 
“She always saves my orange peel, you know, and 
cooks it with sugar.” 

“I haven’t any orange peel,” Peggy said. “But 
there’s the lemon peel from our Sunday lemon- 
ade. If I put sugar over that, I guess it’ll do as 
well as orange. It’s raw, but it’ll get cooked in 
the pudding.” 

“Sure !” agreed Lois. 

Peggy began to mix the ingredients that she 
thought would do for a pudding. Mindful of the 
family fondness for sweets, she put on a double 
quantity of rice. As it swelled in cooking it 
seemed to Peggy that it grew and increased and 
multiplied. She put some in the dish she had 
prepared for the pudding, and then she filled the 
little brown baking dish, and then she put over- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 73 

running measure in a tin cup, and still there was 
more! 

“It’s like gathering up the manna, in last Sun- 
day’s lesson/’ snickered Susie, who had come in 
and was sitting by the table, watching Peggy. 
Susie had an unpleasant way of being very cheer- 
ful when other people were in trouble. 

Peggy saw nothing amusing in the situation. 
“And still there’s too much!” she exclaimed dis- 
gustedly, depositing a big spoonful in the garbage 
can. “I’ve unmeasured so much I don’t know 
how much sugar and things to put in. I’ll just 
have to guess and taste.” 

While Peggy and Susie and Lois were tasting 
and consulting about the pudding, the room filled 
with the sudden smoke and odor of burning meat. 
Peggy snatched the charred bacon off the fire. 

“You hadn’t oughter kept poking wood in the 
stove,” she said wrathfully to Jed. 

“Didn’t you tell me to keep up a good fire?” 
he answered as wrathfully. “Gee! That’s like 
a girl. Asks you to help and then, when you do 
what she says, she blames you for everything 
that’s wrong. Elmore ! Come on and let’s go — 
you know,” he concluded meaningly. And away 
they went, unheeding Peggy’s request for more 
wood. 

Peggy looked into the oven and found the po- 


74 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

tatoes sharing the fate of the bacon. She cut 
off the burnt part and put the small remainder 
aside with the eggs, and devoted herself again 
to the pudding. 

“The fire’s ’most out,” piped up Susie, pres- 
ently, “and there ain’t no more wood here but two 
sticks, an’ they’re too long.” 

“Oh, well !” Peggy said desperately. “I guess 
the pudding is done. It has been in the oven a 
long time. Anyway, it’s no use for it to stay 
there, for the stove’s so cold I can lay my hand 
on it, an’ it’s ’most time for father to come. 
Lois, do you remember how many cups of water 
I put in the coffee pot?” 

Lois did not. Her sister poured in another 
cupful — and then remembered that she had al- 
ready put in the right quantity. 

Peggy put the unsightly, unsavory food in the 
best dishes and arranged them on the table. An 
hour earlier, when she had looked forward with 
pleasure to the meal which she now dreaded, she 
had gathered the last chrysanthemums from the 
one bush in a sheltered nook, and put them in a 
broken mug on the table. Somehow, their pret- 
tiness made her failure seem the more forlorn. 

As she stood looking dejectedly at the result of 
her labors, her father came in. 

“What are you doing, Peggy ?” he asked. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 75 

“I just thought I’d cook supper, pa,” she said 
with none of the pride in her voice which had 
been in her heart an hour before. 

For a minute, her father’s face brightened. 
“ ’T would sure be a comfort if I could be spared 
gettin’ one meal,” he said and took his place at 
the table. But his face darkened when he looked 
at and tasted the food. He sat there in a silence 
more dreadful to Peggy than petulant or angry 
words. Jed and Elmore were merciless in ridi- 
cule. 

“What’s this?” asked Jed, spearing a chunk of 
bacon. “Burnt! Smoked! Ugh! Take it away 
from me,” he said, slinging it on Elmore’s plate. 

“ ’Tain’t no worse than this,” Elmore promptly 
responded, dumping his cabbage on Jed’s plate. 
“What did you do to it, Peggy? It’s salter than 
salt.” 

Peggy tasted it. “Guess I forgot and put salt 
in twice,” she said dejectedly. 

“Three, four times more like,” snickered El- 
more. 

“Did Peggy think she could cook?” asked Jed, 
derisively. “Oh! she can cook, can’t she? I 
guess she can — not!” 

“Ain’t she the cook? Now ain’t she? Ain’t 
she not?” chanted Elmore. 

Peggy sat in mortified silence, watching her 


76 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

father as, without a word, he looked at and tasted 
and pushed aside one article of food after an- 
other. The children’s comments grew louder and 
more unfavorable. 

“What’s them flowers on the table for* 
Peggy?” asked Elmore. “We can’t eat ’em. 
Victuals is victuals, and flowers is flowers. I 
don’t see no sense in mixing ’em.” 

“I’ve got a pudding,” Peggy said, trying hard 
to steady her voice, as she set the dish before her 
father. If only that was good! Oh, it must be! 
She had worked so hard. Surely everything 
could not be a failure. The concoction looked un- 
appetizing, coming unbrowned from the cold 
oven — and alas ! it tasted as bad as it looked. The 
rice was half-cooked and the lemon peel had given 
a bitter twang which the small amount of sugar 
and the half-raw raisins could not conceal. It 
was the last straw. Mr. Callahan pushed aside 
his chair and dumped the contents of his plate in 
the fire. 

“Don’t you waste no more good victuals with 
your cookin’,” he stormed. “Ain’t this a life 
for a man? To come home, hungry and tired, to 
a supper like this!” 

He jerked up his hat and was stalking from 
the room. Poor Peggy burst into loud sobs. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 77 

“I — I — I did the best I knew,” she sobbed in 
uncontrollable grief. 

The children were silent, awed by the sight of 
happy-go-lucky Peggy in such a passion of grief. 
Her father hesitated a second, then came back 
and put a consoling hand on her head. 

“Well, well, Peggeen!” he said. “Don’t cry, 
don’t cry; don’t worry. I guess you did your 
best — and a poor best it was. Don’t worry. But 
spare the victuals and us. Don’t you ever try 
this sort of thing again.” 


CHAPTER VII 


FTER that unfortunate supper, the bick- 



ering between Peggy and the twins deep- 


ened into a feud-like quarrel. Whenever 
she found fault with them — and often, in pure 
mischief, when she did not — the boys laughed 
and jeered unmercifully about that ill-fated meal; 
and they always, as Jed boasted, “got a flare up” 
from Peggy. She, in turn, was cross with them, 
and resentfully enjoyed the reproofs and punish- 
ments the careless little fellows often received. 

As they ran home late on Wednesday after- 
noon, their voices were merry and excited. But 
they dropped into peevish silence when Peggy met 
them with scowls and reproaches. 

“Here Pve been waiting ever so long to start 
the supper fire, and the wood box is empty. I’m 
going to tell pa on you. He said you were to 
come in early and get plenty wood and coal.” 
Elmore began persuasively, “Now, Peggy, just 

this one time you needn’t ” 

Jed cut him short. “Shut up, Elmore. Don’t 
wear out your mouth asking favors of Peg. She’d 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 79 

rather get us punished than eat when she’s hun- 
gry — hungry enough to eat a supper like the one 
she cooked on Monday !” 

Peggy raised her voice sharply: “Sure, I’ll 
tell pa on you the minute he steps in the door. 
You coming in so late — from goodness knows 
where — and bringing no wood !” 

“Sure, you’ll tell, Miss Cross-patch,” agreed 
Jed, cheerfully. “You can tell tales, if you can’t 
cook. — Don’t be worrying, El. Ain’t a good time 
like we’ve been having worth a scolding?” he 
said philosophically, as they strolled out to do 
their chores. “That’s a grand place, ain’t it?” 

“Bully!” said Elmore. “But I wish Officer 
Brady hadn’t come ’round the corner just as I 
was going in. And Roger was on the wall.” 

“Maybe he didn’t notice,” replied Jed. “You 
ought to have hurried. Roger always moves like 
slow freight. Don’t you forget the matches to- 
morrow.” 

“That was a fine way you thought of to carry 
firewood,” Elmore said. “You can carry a good 
bit tied to a string ’round your waist, and your 
sweater covers it so folks can’t see it.” 

Peggy met her father with the story of her 
brothers’ misdeeds and they received a scolding 
and the promise of a whipping if the offense were 
repeated. With clouded brow, Mr. Callahan 


8o PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


moved clumsily and wearily about the kitchen, 
making coffee and baking corncakes and frying 
meat. 

At the supper table, Jed dropped some withered 
^chrysanthemums in Peggy's plate. 

“Here, Peggeen !’’ he jeered. “You like flowers 
for supper." 

Peggy threw the flowers in his face. 

“You are the hatefullest boys that ever lived," 
she cried passionately. “I'll get even with you 
yet, see if I don’t." 

“Hold the tongue of you, Peggy, and the 
temper, too, if you can," said her father. “Jed, 
behave yourself. Ain’t you ashamed to act like 
mad hornets? Glory be! To-morrow I’ll have 
a hard day’s work, — but no woman’s jobs in a 
shanty full of scrimmages." 

Mr. Callahan was going on the canai boat the 
next morning to a shop up the river where the 
blacksmith needed help in shoeing a drove of 
mules. There would be extra pay for the job; 
and with neighbors near and kind he was sure the 
children could get on without him for two or 
three days. 

Early the next morning, he went away. A few 
minutes later, there came under the boys’ window 
the ear-piercing screech which they fondly be- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 8f 


lieved was a real Indian war-whoop. Jed lifted a 
sleepy face to the window. 

Mike McGinley was outside. He sent upward 
a mysterious, anxious question. “Did you see 
it?” 

“See what?” Jed inquired. He opened the 
window and Elmore's tousled head rose at his 
shoulder. 

“It blazed up to high heaven,” said Mike. 
“That house.” 

“Not the one where we — we ” 

Mike nodded assent. “Come down and I'll tell 
you,” he said. 

The boys scrambled into their clothes and ran 
down for a long conference. They came in with 
very sober faces. 

“What’s the matter?” Lois asked in surprise as 
they went schoolward. “Jed isn’t running. He’s 
walking.” 

“He didn’t eat his breakfast,” said Finn. “He 
and Elmore didn’t eat no bread and ’lasses. They 
must be sick.” That was the only reason Finn 
could imagine for a refusal of food. 

Jed and Elmore mournfully submitted to the 
routine of school tasks. At recesses they talked 
in undertones with Mike McGinley and Roger 
Park and Tom Croye who were equally doleful. 

After school the Callahan twins went straight 


82 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


home. Dejected and diligent, they brought arm- 
ful after armful of wood and filled the boxes with 
coal and cinders. 

Lois turned from her Wackerson play and 
knit her brows. 

“What’s the matter with the boys ?” she asked. 
“It makes me want to cry to look at them.” 

“It’s glad I am to see the wood box and the 
coal box full,” said Peggy, observing nothing 
wrong. 

The boys came in and sat down, — very still, but 
with restless eyes. 

Jed turned almost appealingly to Peggy. 

“You’ll tell ma we minded what she said ’bout 
wood and coal and things, won’t you ?” he asked. 

Peggy looked up from her book and noticed his 
pale, sober face. 

“Are you boys sick?” she asked. “You didn’t 
eat your breakfast. Don’t you want some bread 
and molasses?” 

“It’s not hungry I am,” said Jed, gravely. 

“We’re not just sick,” said Elmore, as if ill- 
ness were an enviable triviality in comparison 
with the real trouble. 

“What is the matter?” Peggy asked urgently. 

Neither of the boys answered. 

“You be watching awhile, and then I will,” Jed 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 83 

said to Elmore, with a gesture toward the win- 
dow. 

“We might go out,” Elmore suggested. 

Jed shook his head. He sat down at Lois's 
bedside and picked up Susie's paper dolls one by 
one, looked at them, and put them down. All the 
while he saw a big, blue-clad man, with accusing 
eyes and voice, clutch him with one hand and 
Elmore with the other and march them off to — 

to He caught a sharp quivering breath. Oh ! 

what would be done to them? 

Elmore, meanwhile, stared miserably out of 
the window. He was not looking at the silver- 
shining Potomac at the foot of the wooded Vir- 
ginia hills, nor at the skyward-pointing Wash- 
ington monument, nor at the red walls and gray 
towers of Georgetown College. His anxious eyes 
wandered from the trolley track to Roundabout 
Lane and to the road that followed the hollow 
from Canal Road and climbed out into Conduit 
Road. He, too, had visions of stalwart figures in 
blue, and across the horizon of his thought flamed 
luridly “that house,” blazing, as Mike said, “up 
to high heaven.” 

Presently he turned and asked a question in an 
undertone. 

“Reform School.” Jed did not lower his voice. 


84 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

What was the use? They would all hear it soon, 
from other lips. 

Elmore shuddered. "They say that’s awful 

strict. Maybe they won’t ?” He questioned 

for something better. 

Jed held out no hope. "Most likely that. A 
long term.” 

"What on earth are you talking about?” Peggy 
asked irritatedly. 

There was a dismal silence. 

Suddenly Elmore called excitedly, "Oh! Jed! 

There ” He interrupted himself. "It ain’t. 

I thought it was. It’s a strange man in blue, go- 
ing down the lane.” 

Even Peggy caught the feeling of impending 
calamity. 

"What is the matter? What are you talking 
about?” she asked. Then she exclaimed desper- 
ately, "I wish ma was here to make you tell.” 

"Oh, if ma was here !” Elmore’s head dropped 
on the window sill and he began to sob bitterly 
and loudly. 

Susie stopped cutting out paper dolls and stared 
at him. Lois began to cry in sympathy. 

"Don’t cry.” Baby Dan toddled to Elmore and 
patted the wet cheeks with his soft little hand. 
"I love you. Don’t you cry.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 85 

“Why — why ” Peggy stammered. “What 

is it, Elmore? Pm awful sorry ” 

“You sorry !” interrupted Jed, fiercely. “You’ll 
be glad, glad. Shut up, Elmore. You goose, you 

baby, crying for ma ” He stopped abruptly, 

and fled to the attic room, with Elmore at his 
heels, and bolted the door. 

“I wish pa was at home,” Peggy said uneasily. 
“The boys have done something awful bad. I 
wonder what it is.” 

“Maybe they’ve killed somebody,” suggested 
Lois, wide-eyed with fear. 

“You silly!” said Peggy, sharply. “Likely 
they’ve broken a window, playing Cops and Rob- 
bers. They’re always in mischief, with that bad 
Mike McGinley. I hope they’ll all get whipped and 
be made to pay for their mischief.” Her high, 
clear voice went straight to her brothers’ ears. 

“Hear that!” said Jed. He stiffened his quiv- 
ering lips and called tauntingly, “Peggy! make 
us a rice pudding for supper, won’t you ?” 

At that moment Susie called from the window, 
“There comes Officer Brady.” 

“Is he coming here?” asked Peggy. 

“He’s coming this way. He’s stopped at the 
McGinley’s. He’s talking to Mrs. McGinley. 
My ! She looks so mad and so scared !” 

When the policeman ended the excited conver- 


86 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

sation, he did not turn back toward Georgetown. 
Instead, he followed Roundabout Lane up the 
hill. 

“He is coming here/’ said Susie, in an awed 
tone. 

And so indeed he was. Peggy went to the 
door and met his question, “Is your father home 
from work?’’ 

“He’s away, sir,” she said. “He’s at the shop 
up the canal. He looks to come back on Satur- 
day.” 

The policeman grunted. “Where are those 
boys — the twins?” 

“Upstairs, sir,” said Peggy, and summoned 
them at his command. 

They came down, looking very small and very 
frightened. 

Officer Brady spoke gruffly. “Captain Schmidt 
wants you at his office in the police station at 
four o’clock to-morrow. You know what for. If 
I had the ordering of it, it’s straight to Juvenile 
Court you’d go, for a good stiff sentence at the 
Reform School. Housebreaking and burning at 
your age ! It’s in prison you’ll be as soon as you 
are old enough for the law to v put hands on you.” 

“Oh ! what on earth is the matter? What have 
they done?” inquired Peggy. 

“They’ve housebroke, I tell you,” said the po- 



“oh! WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?” ASKED PEGGY 


%% -v 


+ \ 






Shu?...' . • » * 







PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 87 

liceman, gruffly. “They broke a window — - — ” 

“It was broke and open when we found it,” 
interrupted Jed. 

“And got in the old Morris house. I saw one 
of you going in with Mike McGinley; and wher- 
ever one is, the other is close ahead or behind. 
And Roger Park was following you.” 

“We didn’t mean no harm,” protested Jed. 

“We just went there to play,” added Elmore. 

“And carried away the railings and loose wood- 
work from the front of the house and burned 
it.” 

The boys looked amazed. 

“We didn’t do any such thing,” said Jed. “We 
carried every piece of our wood with us. We 
didn’t burn nothing there. We didn’t aim to do 
no mischief.” 

“And you left the fire there, with that broken 
window,” went on the policeman ; “and it set fire 
to the house and that summer-house part got 
burned down to the ground.” 

Peggy uttered an exclamation of horror. 

“We didn’t mean no harm,” repeated Jed, mis- 
erably. 

“You’ll be doing no harm, many a year to come, 
in the Reform School where you belong,” was 
the policeman’s reply. “To-morrow, four sharp, 
you be at Captain Schmidt’s office.” 


88 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


Housebreaking and burning! What an ap- 
palling outcome of their merry afternoon in the 
old Morris mansion ! It was a tall, long, stuccoed 
house, with ornate iron-work on its high street 
steps and its side veranda, that had been vacant 
for many years, except for a caretaker in the 
front basement. The veranda overlooked a spa- 
cious old garden — now a forlorn tangle of neg- 
lected trees and shrubs and flowers — and ended 
in a quaint octagonal structure that had a tea- 
room below and a music-room above. 

The boys had entered the music-room from the 
upper veranda, through a window which they as- 
serted was open. Then they brought wood — they 
denied mutilating or even entering the main man- 
sion — and made a fire to roast peanuts. About 
five o’clock, they went home. 

The rest of the story told itself. From the fire 
left in the rusty grate, a spark popped or a coal 
rolled on the dust-dry old floor. It smoked and 
smoldered for hours. Then it flickered into a 
tiny flame. Fanned into a blaze by the wind from 
the open window, it flared into a conflagration 
that destroyed the summer-house, rushed along 
the veranda, and threatened the mansion. The 
house was saved only by prompt fire service and 
the windless night. 

Peggy exclaimed loudly. It was just like the 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 89 

boys — -hateful, bad things! Who would ever 
have thought they would do anything so awful? 
If they had come home to their chores after 
school, as they’d been told time and again to do, 
this couldn’t have happened. They knew better 
than to trespass on the Morris place, much less 
to break in the house, least of all to start a fire. 
The Reform School! It was a terrible place. 
Milly Rogan’s cousin knew a man that was neigh- 
bor to a boy who was sent there, and he hated it. 
They’d have to stay there years and years. What 
would pa say, when he came home ? When they 
told ma, she would get sick and white, as she did 
when Jed’s arm was broken. 

Peggy was not blessed and cursed with imagi- 
nation. She did not realize that her words fell 
like blows on the poor little fellows cowering in 
their attic room, to which they fled as soon as 
Officer Brady went away, — not daring to face 
the world outside. 

But they were not to be left alone to their woe. 
Mrs. McGinley rushed up the hill, her face dark 
and threatening as a thundercloud. She knocked, 
and then dashed the door open before Peggy 
could get to it. 

“ ’Tis a shame and disgrace they are, such boys 
as those,” she began shrilly. 

“That they are,” agreed Peggy. 


90 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“I could hardly believe the ears of me, when 
Officer Brady told it,” went on Mrs. McGinley. 
“To think of youngsters like them breaking into 
a house and tearing it down and setting it on 
fire. What will be the end of them?” 

“They’ll be punished as they deserve,” said 
Peggy. “Officer Brady says they’ll all go to the 
Reform School.” 

“All?” Mrs. McGinley screeched. “But sure 
not my Mike, poor innocent! It’s myself will tell 
them they’ve no right to send him to that awful 
Reform School, taking him away from his father 
and mother, just because he followed bad mis- 
chief-makers. Them twins always were full of 
boldness and badness as an egg is of meat. And 
with their mother away and them running wild, 
they’re not fit for decent lads to go with. And 
now they’ve got my poor Mike in this awful, 
dreadful trouble.” 

Upstairs, two surprised, resentful boys faced 
each other. 

“He dared me in, and he came next,” said Jed. 

“He’s always making up his own mischief, and 
he worsens things the others start. Why, that 
time ” 

“Sh! sh! Elmore! What is Peggy saying?” 
It was an exclamation rather than a question, for 
Peggy’s voice rose clear and steady. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 91 

“I was agreeing the boys were bad, Mrs. Mc- 
Ginley, meaning all the boys. Our twins are 
mischiefy, but they don't get in real badness ’less 
they are led on by Mike and the others.” 

Jed and Elmore exchanged looks of amazed 
inquiry. Was Peggy really taking up for them? 
— and even accusing Mike to his mother’s face? 

Mrs. McGinley gasped. “Mike! Sure, you 
are not meaning to say that poor little fel- 
low ” 

“Maybe he’ll be better, Mrs. McGinley, now he 
gets punished for his badness,” Peggy suggested 
politely. “Ma was always saying he wasn’t bad 
at heart. That’s why she let Jed and Elmore 
keep going with him, — just telling them not to 
follow into his mischief, like they did last April, 
when he got them to go in swimming and they 
caught such terrible colds.” 

“I mind that. Don’t you, Mrs. McGinley? 
And you whipped Mike and said he was a holy 
jterror.” Susie assisted Mrs. McGinley’s memory. 

“With ma away, the boys don’t always mind 
her good advicing,” Peggy went on. “And that’s 
how they happen in this mischief. It’s bad and 
terrible and all that, but our twins are no worse 
than other boys — and sure they are better than 
Mike.” 

The defense that family pride led Peggy to 


92 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

make for her brothers worked on her own feel- 
ings. When supper was ready, she called pleas- 
antly, “Come, Jed, you and Elmore; come and get 
your supper while it’s hot.” 

They came down, slowly and soberly. Elmore 
seated himself at the table. Jed sauntered to the 
window and standing there, with his back to every 
one, he made a brief explanation. 

“Sure, we hadn’t no business there. But we 
didn’t mean no harm. The window was open. 
That made us think of going in. Mike and me — 
we were ‘robbers’ — ran ’cross the garden. And 
I saw the window. Mike dared me in, and we 
went. Then we told the other boys. And we 
carried wood and made a fire. We didn’t burn 
a railing or nothing.” 

“Some one did. Officer Brady said so,” said 
Peggy. 

“We didn’t. Honest to goodness, we didn’t,” 
Elmore affirmed. 

“We didn’t even go in the big house,” Jed went 
on. He had a motive for laying the case before 
Peggy. “We just peeked through a broken door. 
And we didn’t mean to do no harm. I thought 
sure I put that fire out.” 

There was a little silence. “Peggy, will — will 

you tell ma ” Jed stopped and cleared his 

throat. But he could not go on. He made vain 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 93 

efforts to swallow the choking lump in his throat. 

“All right.” Peggy went toward him. He was 
such a little fellow, and he looked so lonesome 
and so miserable and so mother-sick! Peggy 
wanted to put her arms around him and comfort 
him — and cry herself. But there was no habit 
of affection between them, and so she stood si- 
lent and awkward. 

At last she put her hand shyly on his shoulder 
and let it slip upward to rest caressingly on his 
neck. “Come to supper, — boyeen,” she said, giv- 
ing his mother's pet name. 

Jed did not speak. He turned his head till his 
chin rested a minute on the kind soft hand, and 
then he and his sister moved toward the table to- 
gether. 


CHAPTER VIII 


HE hours of that evening and the next 



day were frightfully long and miserable 


^ to Jed and Elmore. Yet when they were 
over, it seemed as if they had passed all too quick- 
ly and brought the hour of ordeal. 

At four o'clock, the young Holly Hill offenders 
— Tom Croye, Mike McGinley, Tim Rogan, Al- 
bert Fischer, and Jed and Elmore Callahan — 
filed solemnly into Captain Schmidt's office at 
the police station. 

All the boys, except the Callahan twins, were 
accompanied by their fathers and mothers, and 
Peggy went with her brothers in place of their 
absent parents. She held her head high, and 
flashed a triumphant look at Mrs. McGinley when 
Mike, in answer to Captain Schmidt's questions, 
confessed that he was the first to suggest enter- 
ing the Morris house. 

Captain Schmidt, chief of the police precinct, 
was a wise and kindly man, especially in his deal- 
ings with boys. The policemen under him had 
orders to bring young offenders to his office. 


94 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 95 

Then he questioned them and investigated their 
cases, often dismissing, with a reprimand and on 
probation, cases that other officers would have 
taken to Juvenile Court. He explained that he 
liked better to make the youngsters respect and 
obey the law than to punish them. 

He looked very grave over this case. Tres- 
passing, housebreaking, houseburning, — these 
seemed offenses that would have to go to Juvenile 
Court and probably land the young criminals in 
the Reform School. 

He fixed his shrewd gray eyes on Jed. “And 
you say you did not open the window ?” 

“It was open, sir.” Jed repeated his unshaken 
statement. “The shutter was swinging in the 
wind. That's why we saw it.” 

“And you are sure you didn’t burn the stair- 
rails ?” 

All the boys declared they did not. Not one of 
them had gone into the main mansion, they as- 
serted and maintained. 

Captain Schmidt frowned and pondered the 
matter. At last he continued the case until the 
next afternoon, greatly to the disapproval of Of- 
ficer Brady who thought the culprits ought to be 
sent to Juvenile Court for a Reform School sen- 
tence. 

The boys went home to another miserable night 


96 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

and miserable day. The more they thought of 
the matter — and they thought of nothing else — 
the more definite and dreadful became their fore- 
bodings. On Friday afternoon, they returned to 
the police court in a state of abject misery. 

Captain Schmidt met them gravely, but with 
kind eyes, and kindly but gravely informed them 
that they were proved not guilty of the most se- 
rious charges against them, — housebreaking and 
burning; but in trespassing they followed in evil 
footsteps. 

A sneak thief, who stole gas and water pipes 
out of vacant houses, had spent several nights in 
the Morris house. It was he who burned the 
wood-work and left unfastened the window 
through which the boys went in. He en- 
tered the music-room, after they went away on 
Wednesday afternoon, and he left there, in the 
early morning, the fire that did the mischief. He 
tried to sell at a junk shop the piping taken from 
this and other houses, and when faced with the 
proofs of his misdemeanors, he thought it wisest 
to make a clean breast of the whole affair. 

Captain Schmidt reprimanded the boys severely 
for trespassing, and then dismissed them, receiv- 
ing their promise of good behavior and ordering 
them to report to him every week. 

The little Callahans had a great deal to tell 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 97 

their father when he came home that night. Then 
the tale was carried to Mrs. Callahan, for her to 
cry and laugh over. And it was the first thing to 
be told to Anne Lewis when she came on Wednes- 
day afternoon. 

Anne had not seen any of the Callahans for 
several days and she had come to rejoice with 
Peggy at the expected culinary triumph. The 
exciting story about the boys was followed by 
the pitiful tale of Peggy’s misadventures. 

Peggy was sorrier than ever for herself, as she 
told the story of her efforts and her failures. 
She wept, and had to be comforted and petted by 
Anne. 

Lois, loyal to her sister in trouble, made the 
best of things. “The pudding wasn’t so bad,” 
she said. “It didn’t spoil the plums. We picked 
’em out and et ’em.” She patted Peggy’s hand 
and Peggy kissed her gratefully. 

“The worst is, if I’d done what I started out 
to do and what I knew to do, it would have been 
all right,” Peggy said with the hindsight which 
brings small comfort. “Pa looked real chirked 
up when he came in and saw me at the cook 
stove. If I just hadn’t tried to make that hateful 
old pudding I’d have minded the other things 
and they wouldn’t have turned out so bad. 


98 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Though it’s a lot easier to do things one at a 
time than all together.” 

“That’s what puzzles me,” said Anne. “I don’t 
see how people start things so that they end at 
the same time and make a breakfast or a dinner. 
Aunt Cindy says it’s all practice.” 

“Practice is what I’ll never get,” said Peggy, 
mournfully. “Pa told me never to try again. I 
wouldn’t dare. But it makes me so mad to fail 
that I want to try again and a million times, till 
I do it right. But I daren’t disobey pa. And he’s 
getting so tired of cooking, and I’m afraid — I’m 
so afraid the gang will get him.” Her voice 
dropped to a whisper. 

She looked despairingly at Anne and Anne 
looked back, pitiful but unhelpful. 

“Well,” said Peggy, presently, “I can’t sit here 
and hold my hands. You don’t mind my sorting 
the clothes, while we talk, do you, Anne?” 

She brought out a basketful of clothes that she 
had washed with a little help from Prilla Hicks in 
rubbing and wringing the heaviest things. Ac- 
cording to her mother’s instructions, Peggy had 
folded smoothly and put away all the clothes that 
could be used rough-dry. Those that must be 
ironed were put into a basket and ironed, a few 
pieces at a time, as Peggy had opportunity. 

Now she looked over the ironed clothes and 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 99 

sewed on buttons and mended small rents. The 
stockings and garments requiring much mending 
were laid aside to be taken to her mother. 

“After I mend and place away these,” Peggy 
said, “Pm going to see that the groceries are 
handy for pa; and then I’ll start the kitchen fire, 
so as to have the stove hot when he comes. 
That’ll save him one trouble. If only I could 
help him with the cooking ! But he’ll never trust 
me to try again.” 

“But if you tried again, you’d do it,” said 
Anne. “You know now what you did wrong, and 
that is the first part of knowing how to do right. 
It was that pudding — and cutting your finger — 
and trying to do too many things at once. If you 
try again, you know what not to do, and you’ll do 
the right things.” 

Peggy acquiesced mournfully. “But I daren’t 
try,” she repeated. “And, my, how I want to! 
I do hate to stop with failing ” 

“I know. It’s like a bitter taste in your mouth,” 
Anne interrupted. 

Peggy nodded and hesitatingly made further 
explanation. “Pa is so tired, and he gets so mad ! 
He said last night he believed he’d split open if 
he didn’t kick that old stove over. And then he 
said he never had known before what a terrible 
good woman ma was, and he guessed he had to 


ioo PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

struggle on and give her a chance to get well. 
But Pm afraid — afraid he’ll break down some 
day and the gang will get him, before he re- 
members about ma.” 

Anne did not clearly understand this speech. 
Anyway, she was hearing only with her ears, not 
with her mind. Following the different course of 
her own thoughts, she said, “It’s just the things 
we’ve learned at school that you’d have to do. 
And you never have any trouble there.” 

“Somehow, it seems different,” said Peggy. 
“I never thought about cooking-school lessons 
having anything to do with this old cook stove and 
our victuals. Ma cooked mush two or three times 
a week, but I never thought about it being the 
same thing we made in our stewpans at school.” 

“Why, of course, it is the same,” said Anne. 

“I know it,” said Peggy. “I know it one way, 
but another way I didn’t know it.” 

Anne hardly heeded this rather puzzling ex- 
planation. She went on. “I think it’s fun to do 
the cooking-school kind of cooking at home. I’ve 
boiled rice and baked potatoes and made milk 
gelatine. Aunt Cindy didn’t quarrel — much. 
She’s always saying 'she hates to have people 
messing around her kitchen.’ And then one day 
I was making chocolate caramels and I forgot the 
pan handle was one that pulled out and I spilled 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 101 


the chocolate all over the floor and everything 
was all black and sticky. Aunt Cindy was so 
mad! She had just scrubbed the floor. And she 
went straight and told Aunt Sarah. If she had 
waited a while, she wouldn’t have told so cross. 
And Aunt Sarah said I mustn’t go in the kitchen, 
cooking and worrying Aunt Cindy 'that’s old and 
notiony and a faithful servant.’ If it wasn’t for 
that” — Anne now came to the point around 
which her thoughts had been revolving — "you 
could come to our house and do your learning. 
There are shelves and shelves full of things there, 
and Aunt Sarah says she always expects them to 
be wasted. I wonder if there isn’t some way we 
can manage?” 

None presented itself at once to her mind. She 
kept on wondering, even while she listened to 
Lois’s tales about the Wackersons and made up 
a story in turn. 

Anne showed Lois, in the cracks and splotches- 
of the wall, a tower beside the sea, with big steps 
for the giants to go up and little ones for the 
fairies. 

And then, Anne said, one day the giants 
climbed up and hid a princess in the tallest top 
of that tower and the fairies came to help her 
away. The giants saw them and came running,, 
in such a hurry that they didn’t go ’round to their 


102 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


own big steps, but started up the fairies’ little 
steps. And the steps began to creak and shiver 
and shake. But the giants went on up and up 
and up. Oh, the poor princess was so scared! 
And just as the giants were almost — almost there, 
a fairy like a big butterfly flew off with the prin- 
cess. And the steps broke down and the giants 
all tumbled into the sea and were drowned. Oh, 
it was a wonderful story! When Anne gave 
reins to her imagination, it ran a gallant race, 
I assure you. 

Lois listened with wide-eyed interest. She 
loved her Wackersons who lived a life similar to 
her own. But she gave admiring attention to 
the romances about giants and fairies, and brave 
knights and lovely ladies in distress whose 
abodes Anne saw in the same splotches and crev- 
ices that Lois peopled with the Wackersons. 

Anne hardly heard the request for another 
story. She clapped her hands and said eagerly, 
“Oh, Peggy, Peggy! I have it! I have a plan. 
Your father just said you mustn’t cook at home, 
didn’t he?” 

“Of course,” said Peggy, wonder ingly. “He 
said I mustn’t try any more cooking stunts and 
spoil good victuals, high-priced as they are.” 

“That’s it,” said Anne. “He told you you 
mustn’t try. He didn’t say you mustn’t do it. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 103 

He’d be willing for you to cook, if you knew 
how.” 

"And glad and thankful,” said Peggy. 

"That’s it ! The thing is for you to do the try- 
ing somewhere else, and then do the cooking at 
home. Now, Thursday is Thanksgiving Day and 
Pm going to have a party — some girls to lunch — 
and I want you to come. Oh, you must ! Then 

you and I I reckon I’d better ask Aunt 

Sarah first. But I think Oh, I am sure this 

plan will work ! I must go now.” 

"Don’t go; you’ve been talking to Lois all the 
time you weren’t talking to Peggy. I ain’t had 
none of you,” complained Susie. 

"But Lois is sick in bed. Poor Lois! Aren’t 
you sorry for her, having to stay in bed so long?” 
asked Anne. 

"No,” said Susie, sturdily. "I ain’t not sorry 
for her. What for? She has the best time of 
us all. She’s got herself to play with all the time. 
Her and them Wackersons have a lot better time 
than I do. I’m lonesome.” Her voice quavered. 

"Bless your heart, childie! That’s too bad,” 
said Anne. "I’ll come to see you and be your 
company some day soon. Now I really must go 
home. I’m just bound to see Aunt Sarah and 
ask her something right away.” 

She ran home to lay her plan before Aunt 


104 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Sarah, but there were house guests, — dreadful 
guests of the kind who require constant enter- 
taining. Anne, finding it impossible to get pos- 
session of Aunt Sarah for consultation, at last 
took possession of a pause in the after-dinner 
conversation. 

“May I ask you one thing — just one little thing, 
Aunt Sarah ?'' she implored. “You know my 
luncheon party to-morrow and the girls we in- 
vited. Well, I’ve asked Peggy to come, too. To- 
day ” 

“Peggy?” said Miss Drayton, vaguely. 

“Yes, Aunt Sarah. Peggy. Peggy Callahan, 
you know. Her mother is in a hospital and '' 

“My dear! Why, Peggy is — she isn't — 
she •” 

Anne waited a polite second, but Miss Dray- 
ton's sentence hung fire. It was absurd, of 
course. Anne ought to know better than to in- 
vite Peggy Callahan, the blacksmith's daughter, 
to the charming little luncheon planned for Ga- 
brielle and Polly Mason Blair and Beverley Har- 
vie, with Grace Brevoort and Agnes Le Fevre, 
visiting girls from New York and New Orleans. 
Peggy Callahan! It was utterly absurd. But 
Anne looked so innocent of offense, so earnest, 
so eager, — one couldn't hurt her feelings. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 105 

“There was such a special reason,” Anne start- 
ed to explain. “I knew you’d want her.” 

“But — but, dear, you have only six Bluebird 
tickets,” Miss Drayton objected. 

“Yes, Aunt Sarah,” said Anne. “Peggy can’t 
go ; she says she must go straight home to study 
and get the kitchen fire started before her father 
comes. I was going to stay at home and have 
her go, but she couldn’t.” 

“You were going to stay at home from your 
own party?” ejaculated Miss Drayton. 

“Yes, Aunt Sarah,” answered Anne. “I hated 
to think of missing it; but I couldn’t ask one of 
my guests to stay away, could I ?” 

“No,” acquiesced Miss Drayton, hastily. 

“Aunt Sarah, let me explain about Peggy,” 
Anne began again. “It’s a nice, longish story 
and ” 

Miss Drayton caught Mrs. Marshall’s eyes con- 
sulting the clock and was aware that Miss Ir- 
vine was trying not to look at it. Their hostess 
rose to her duties. She put a caressing hand un- 
der Anne’s chin and said, “Then, dear, it will 
have to wait. The car is at the door. It might 
have been better not to invite Peggy, but I am 
sure you and she and the other girls will have a 
good time. I am sorry Mrs. Marshall and Miss 
Irvine and I can’t be with you. But we must have 


106 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

our trip to Mount Vernon. Good-night, dearie .— 
Sue, Louise, shall we want heavier wraps ?” 

Anne followed them into the hall. 

“Please, Aunt Sarah, as it’s my party— may 
I — please let me tell Aunt Cindy what food we 
want. And mayn’t we — Peggy — go in the 
kitchen for cooking?” 

“Peggy ? For cooking?” questioned Miss Dray- 
ton. 

“Things we learned in cooking school. She 
can. I know she can. As it’s my party, mayn’t 
Peggy ” 

“Oh! I suppose so. Yes. Tell Cindy. I’ve 
given the orders. But tell her what you want. 
And don’t be troublesome. Good-night, good- 
night, dear.” With a hasty kiss, she followed her 
guests out of the door. 

“We’ll not be late — not very,” she said, as they 
started theaterward. “Anne is seldom so per- 
sistent. But she has her heart set on some proj- 
ect. There is some sauce or salad they have 
learned to make at cooking school, I suppose, that 
she wishes to prepare for her own luncheon.” 

But the plan which Anne had in mind and 
which she promptly arranged to carry out was 
quite unlike anything that Miss Drayton did or 
could suppose. 


CHAPTER IX 


A NNE waved good-by to Miss Drayton, and 
then hunted up a note-book which she 
carried to the kitchen. Cindy received 
with glum disapproval the information that Anne 
and Peggy were to invade her province the next 
day and that Anne was to give instructions about 
the luncheon food. But without verbal protest, 
she settled herself to listen to instructions. 

“There are to be prunes,” Anne explained. 
“And they’re to be put in soak to-night.” 

“Yessum. Gwi’ have prune sowfla? ’T would 
be heap nicer ” 

Anne interrupted Cindy’s suggestion. “No. 
Stewed prunes.” 

“Stewed prunes !” ejaculated Cindy. 

“Yes,” Anne answered calmly. “I brought 
down my book to tell you all the things we 
want, so you can be sure to have them on hand. 
Our cooking-school teacher says that’s the proper 
way.” 

Anne opened her domestic science note-book 
and read carefully from its pages: 

107 


108 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“Two cups boiling water, — ’Course we can boil 
that — 

“One teaspoonful salt. 

“One-fourth cup corn meal. — That’s all of 
that.” 

“Mercy sakes !” exclaimed Cindy. “That 
sounds like mush.” 

“It is mush,” Anne said calmly. Then she read 
from another page : 

“One pound prunes, — I told you about them — 

“Six cups water, — That’s always on hand — 

“Four tablespoonfuls sugar. — That’s all for the 
stewed prunes.” 

“Stewed prunes and mush for company eat- 
in’!” exclaimed Cindy. 

“Yes, and we’ll have toast and bacon and eggs 
and coffee. That’s all,” Anne continued and con- 
cluded. 

“Toast and bacon and eggs and coffee!” re- 
peated Cindy, in amazement. “Why, Miss Anne, 
I thought you were gwine to have a party.” 

“So I am,” said Anne. 

“A party ! with them victuals !” 

“I think they’re very good for a party. They’re 
— they’re wholesome. Except maybe the coffee, 
and we don’t have to drink that; we just have to 
make it. Have you all the things we need?” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 109 

Anne’s explanation left Cirrdy more bewildered 
than ever, so she merely answered weakly, 
“Yessum; uh, yessum. All them things are here. 
Corn meal — for mush! — and prunes — stewed 
prunes ! — and bread and bacon and eggs and cof- 
fee J And what else, Miss Anne?” 

“That’s all, I told you. Good-night.” Anne 
turned to go, but Cindy detained her. “Miss 
Anne, what kind of party is it, and who’s corn- 
in’?” 

“It’s going to be a very nice party,” said Anne, 
with dignity, for she disliked the fault-finding 
tone of Cindy’s question. “Gabrielle and Polly 
Mason Blair are coming and their cousin from 
New York, Grace Brevoort, that’s visiting them. 
And Beverley Harvie, and her chum from New 
Orleans, Agnes Le Fevre. And Peggy and I 
make seven. It’s a family-sized party.” 

“It’s some kind of prank she’s got on hand,” 
Cindy told the housemaid after Anne went up- 
stairs. “I sure am sorry. Miss Sarah ordered 
sech a nice lunch — icecream and all — jest for 
them. She’s gwine out for the day with her com- 
panies, and she told me to have one o’clock lunch 
for them girls, and James is got to have the auto- 
beel here at half-past two, to take ’em to a play 
thing at the theayter. Mush and prunes! It’s 
funny prankin’.” 


no PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

But Anne had no thought of a prank. She 
was at her most serious and earnest the next 
morning when she came into the kitchen with 
Peggy. And Peggy, awed by Cindy and the un- 
familiar surroundings, was even more solemn 
than Anne. Both were armed with their domes- 
tic science note-books. 

Anne explained resolutely, “I’ll be in and out 
the kitchen, Aunt Cindy, because I have other 
guests coming. But Peggy’ll be in here. She’ll 
try — she’s going to do the cooking.” 

“What?” said Cindy. “What, Miss Anne?” 

“It’s all right, Aunt Cindy,” Anne assured her. 
“Aunt Sarah said we might come in and cook.” 

Yes, Miss Drayton had left instructions that 
Anne and Peggy were to have the freedom of the 
kitchen. Cindy had intended to tell her mistress 
about Anne’s amazing luncheon order. But Miss 
Drayton had gone out with her guests imme- 
diately after breakfast, telling a housemaid to 
£ay to Cindy that Anne and Peggy wished to come 
into the kitchen; she hoped they wouldn’t be in 
the way. But “do the cooking” — for luncheon 
and for guests ! 

“What does she” — Cindy pointed a disdain- 
ful finger at Peggy — “what does she know ’bout 
cookin’ ?” 

“She’s learning. And she’s got to know. She’s 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE in 


to do things all by herself,” said Anne. “Aunt 
Sarah said ” 

“Uh, yessum, yessum!” Cindy surrendered, 
with disapproval in every line of her face and 
figure. “Miss Sarah’s lettin’ you. I got nothin’ 
to do with it.” 

“Oh, but everything depends on you,” said 
Anne, with flattering earnestness. “It’s your 
showing her about doing things together — Why, 
it all depends on you.” 

“Wellum,” said Cindy, mollified by this tribute 
to her importance. “What you want me to do?” 

“Peggy, you tell her what you want,” said 
Anne, “and what you want to know.” 

“I want,” said Peggy, and she read the list 
Anne had rehearsed the evening before: 

“Two cups boiling water. 

“One teaspoonful salt. 

“One-fourth cup corn meal. 

“One pound prunes. 

“One cup water. 

“Four tablespoonfuls sugar — 

“And then we are to have coffee and bread and 
meat,” said Peggy. 

“Bacon and eggs,” said Anne, rehearsing the 
list she had made out with Peggy. “Coffee for 
one and the other things for seven. That’s a good 
breakfast.” 


112 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


“You’re talkin’ ’bout a lunch party,” Cindy 
reminded her. 

Peggy and Anne ignored this statement. 

“What I want most of all,” said Peggy, des- 
perately, “is to know when to start about which, 
so as to make a breakfast of it — instead of just 
things. Won’t you tell me, please?” she appealed 
to Cindy. 

After enough objections to gratify her sense of 
importance, Cindy acceded to the girls’ request 
and gave the desired instructions. Peggy was 
apt and eager to learn and proceeded beautifully 
with the preparation of the remarkable luncheon. 
It was almost ready when Anne, to her vast re- 
gret, had to leave the kitchen to receive her other 
guests. 

Just then Cindy heard steps on the porch, and 
opened the door, thinking it was the ice man. 
It was Pat Patterson who had run in the back 
way. 

“Hm, Aunt Cindy !” he sniffed. “That’s a good 
breakfasty smell. Are you just having break- 
fast?” 

“It’s lunch, Marse Pat,” said Cindy, waddling 
out on the porch, delighted to discuss the matter 
with a member of the family. “Comp’ny lunch — 
corn-meal mush, stewed prunes, poached eggs, 
bacon, and coffee.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 113 

“What !" exclaimed Pat. 

“Miss Sarah's off for the day with her com- 
panies/' Cindy explained, “an' Miss Anne's hav- 
in' a party. She’s got the swellest young ladies in 
Georgetown here — an' that Peggy Callahan — and 
what you reckon she's ordered to eat? She's fix- 
in' to set them young ladies down to corn-meal 
mush, stewed prunes, poached eggs, bacon, and 
coffee." Cindy repeated, with increasing disgust, 
the list of the articles of food. 

“You're joking, Aunt Cindy," Pat said, laugh- 
ing. 

“See for yourself, sir," she answered, beckon- 
ing him into the kitchen. 

Pat went in and spoke pleasantly, though with 
evident surprise, to Peggy, who, flushed with 
heat and embarrassment, stood firmly at her post 
beside the sizzling bacon. 

And then Anne, looking like a fresh-blown 
eglantine in her new pink muslin frock, ran in to 
see how Peggy was getting on. 

“Anne," said Pat, “for pity's sake, who's the 
bunch you're going to serve this food to?" 

Anne calmly repeated the names of her guests. 

Pat stared, too amazed at first to enjoy the 
absurdity of the situation. “Why, these girls — 
they never saw — you never heard — of such a 
luncheon," Pat gasped. 


H4 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“Well?” Anne tipped her stubborn little nose 
upward. 

“What would you think, what would you do,” 
queried Pat, “if any one was to put such a 
luncheon before you, at Thanksgiving ?” 

“I’d eat what was set before me, and ask no 
questions,” Anne said primly. 

“Anne, for pity’s sake, why are you doing 
this?” 

“I haven’t time to tell you now, Pat,” Anne 
answered. “My guests have all come. And 
Peggy has luncheon ready to serve.” 

The ridiculous side of the affair was beginning 
to appeal to Pat. But he recognized the necessity 
of keeping grave in the face of Anne’s tremen- 
dous earnestness. 

“I am sure Aunt Sarah would wish you to dis- 
cuss this matter — to answer my questions, Anne,” 
he said. “Am I to understand that you consulted 
her — that she sanctioned your plan?” 

“She was busy. She said that Peggy and I 
might go into the kitchen — and cook. I wished 
to tell her all about it. She didn’t have time to 
listen,” Anne explained briefly. 

Pat bit his lips to keep back laughter. He knew 
the sensitive streak and the stubborn streak of 
Anne well enough to be sure that if he laughed, 
she would tilt her chin into the air and invite her 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 115 

guests in to luncheon. And yet it was hard not 
to laugh at thought of the Blairs and their 
cousin and Beverley Harvie and her guest sitting 
down for a Thanksgiving feast to the food pre- 
pared as a pattern meal for the blacksmith's 
family. 

“Aunt Sarah would be mortified — very much 
mortified — at having such a luncheon served to 
guests," he said decidedly. “On my honor, she 
would. Indeed, Anne, you must not do it. You 
really must not." 

Perhaps Anne had had private misgivings 
about the propriety of her course. Anyway, 
Pat's earnestness was impressive. She looked 
disturbed. 

“But, Pat," she said, “there's nothing else for 
luncheon. And it's too late for Cindy to cook 
things. Aunt Sarah said for us to leave here 
promptly at half-past two, so as not to miss one 
minute of the Bluebird ." 

“I promised her I’d leave you at the theater on 
my way to baseball. But Aunt Cindy will fix a 
good luncheon. Won't you, Aunt Cindy?" Pat 
appealed to the old cook. 

“I'd like to, Marse Pat," Cindy answered. 
“Miss Sarah ordered the nicest things ! An' then 
Miss Anne came in. It's mighty late" — she 
glanced at the kitchen clock, which announced a 


n6 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


quarter past twelve — “an’ nothin’ fixed. I’ll do 
my best. I c’n make a salad. And sandwiches. 
And there’s fruit. It’ll be a poor, scrappy sort of 
a meal to set company down to.” 

“Pm sorry. I was just thinking of Peggy 

and ” Anne’s lips quivered and the sentence 

paused on a note of distressed uncertainty. 

“I’m awful sorry. I hadn’t ought to let you 
do it. I’m awful sorry.” Peggy forgot every- 
thing except Anne’s distress. Cindy rescued the 
bacon in the nick of time and poured ofif the 
gravy 

“Oh, no, no, Peggy ! don’t feel that way,” said 
Anne. “I’d rather you’d do this than have the 
nicest party ever was. — She’s practicing to cook 
breakfast for her father and the children,” she 
explained to Pat. “Her mother’s in the hospital.” 

“I’m awful sorry,” repeated Peggy. “I’ve 
spoiled your party.” 

Pat thought quickly and self-sacrificingly. In 
his purse was the money to buy some tennis balls 
and to pay for his grandstand ticket this after- 
noon. Gee! his favorite team was playing and 
he had looked forward to this game for weeks. 
But he couldn’t leave Anne in such a predica- 
ment. 

“Don’t worry,” he said. “The car .is at the 
door. I’ll rush somewhere and get things. What 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 117 

do I want, Cindy, for a Number One luncheon? 
And where do I go?” 

Cindy named the best caterer in the city, and 
gave a list of things to get. “Chicken patties — I 
was to make some,” she said. “I'll get a fruit 
salad ready. Get cake and cream. You can buy 
the*icecream in pretty shapes. I’ll have the table 
and the salad ready, time you get back.” 

Pat rushed to the shop which Cindy suggested 
and threw himself on the mercy of the fat French- 
woman in charge. He must have the things at 
once. For the nicest luncheon possible. Six — 
seven little girls. They ought to be sitting down 
to the table now. They were to go after luncheon 
to the Bluebird matinee. 

The fat Frenchwoman listened, smiling and 
attentive. 

“The Bluebird,” she said, as he paused. “Ah, 
that inspires. Let us see. It shall give the color 
scheme. So, so! And hurry all the possible.” 

She began to work rapidly, calling a waiter or 
two to assist her. She ordered chicken patties 
and dainty little lettuce sandwiches. She brought 
out place cards decorated with bluebirds poised 
on blossoming apple boughs, or winging their way 
across a blue and spring-like sky. She selected 
dainty little white iced cakes decorated with 
green and red cherries. And she put the ice- 


n8 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


cream in dishes covered with pale green paper, 
having on the side of each a Japanese spray of 
apple blossoms and an exquisite little bluebird 
perched on the rim, as if it had alighted there 
to feast on the spray of cherries atop the cream. 

The fat Frenchwoman cocked her head on one 
side and admired her own handiwork. “Blue- 
birds, spring, youth, happiness ! It is the inspira- 
tion/' she said. “I had not with all the time 
made it more exquisite." 

“It's fine! fine!" exclaimed Pat. But when 
the price was named, his countenance fell. “I 
am sorry," he said frankly and regretfully, “I 
haven't quite money enough." 

“Shall I take the bluebirds from the dishes? 
Or use the smaller plain dishes?" inquired the 
shopkeeper. 

Pat hesitated. “It is perfect," he said. “I 
don't want it changed. If you will trust me" — 
he gave his father’s name and address — “I will 
bring you the money on Saturday." 

“With all the pleasure," the shopkeeper re- 
sponded smilingly. “Your father is a long-time 
patron of ours. And I rejoice so to fill your first 
order that you empty your pockets to me with 
the smile." 

Pat hurried home with his purchases, which 
were received with enthusiastic admiration. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 119 

Peggy especially was delighted, for the thought 
of spoiling her friend’s party had been like a 
lump of lead on her heart. She clapped joyful 
hands when Cindy said this was the prettiest 
luncheon table she had ever seen. 

“Pm so glad! I’m so glad!” she said. “But 
don’t fix a place for me. Oh, no ! no, no ! I must 
go home. I can’t sit at that table with the party 
girls.” She looked down at her faded gingham 
frock. 

Pat said that for his part he was shy, also; he 
was too shy for six ladies, but not too shy for 
one. So he asked Cindy to spread a little serv- 
ing-table in the butler’s pantry for him and 
Peggy, and they had as merry a party as the 
one in the dining-room. 

Pat escorted the matinee party to the theater 
and then came back for Peggy and a basket of 
food which Cindy put up at Anne’s request. He 
went in to see Lois, to display for her benefit his 
new accomplishment, — that of cutting on an 
orange a face with an open mouth and then of 
squeezing the juice through the mouth. Lois’s 
fascinated attention was almost enough to com- 
pensate him for the ball game which he missed. 
Anyway, his favorite team was beaten and he 
was spared the sight of its defeat. 

That night, Pat and Anne and Mr. Patterson 


120 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

and Miss Drayton sat beside the glowing library 
fire, in the intimate home comfort which followed 
the departure of rather trying guests, and dis- 
cussed all the happenings of the day. 

The flickering firelight concealed Mr. Patter- 
son’s smile of amusement at the story of Anne’s 
wonderful party. Miss Drayton saw nothing to 
call forth smiles. She thought Anne had acted 
very foolishly, but the child was spared the usual 
grave, tender reproof, because Miss Drayton was 
troubled about the Callahans. 

“I have been so occupied that I forgot about 
those poor people!” she exclaimed. “And poor 
little Lois is still in bed? How dreadful! Of 
course I am glad you gave Peggy a basket of 
food. If I had thought about the case, I’d have 
Drought it up in the Ladies’ Aid Society yesterday. 
I’ll make a note of it for the December meeting 
and something will be done about it.” 


CHAPTER X 


HE Thanksgiving holiday was to last un- 



til Monday, so Peggy had Friday morn- 


ing free from lessons for the task she had 
set herself. 

She rose early, smothered the alarm clock un- 
der her pillow, dressed hastily, tiptoed into the 
kitchen, and kindled the fire. Then she put her 
breakfast materials in order on the table. 

First, there were the prunes which she had 
set to soak the night before. Beside them there 
were, carefully measured, four tablespoon fuls of 
sugar. Next in place was a fourth of a cup of 
corn meal, and by that a teaspoonful of salt. 
There were three loaves of bread. There was 
sliced bacon — a more liberal supply than was 
often seen on the Callahan table, cut at Anne’s 
request by Cindy’s unstinting hand. And there 
were eggs, — one for each member of the family, 
though Peggy had explained that her mother 
never cooked more than two eggs at a meal, one 
for father because he liked it and one for Lois 
because she was sick. 


121 


122 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

On the table beside the coffee-pot, Peggy had 
a big tablespoonful of coffee for her father’s cup 
and a smaller one for the pot. “You be sure to 
put that in,” Cindy had said. “The cookin’ 
schoolers may tell you to do that or they may not 
tell you. But I been a ’speriencin’ cook since ’fore 
you was born. Don’t no good cook forgit the 
pot.” 

Peggy began, according to the instructions and 
experience of the day before, with the articles 
that required longest cooking. 

She put on the kettle, as soon as she started 
the fire ; and in a little while the water was boil- 
ing rapidly. Then she measured two cupfuls of 
water, put it in a stewpan, and added the tea- 
spoonful of salt. She sprinkled in the fourth of a 
cup of corn meal and stirred it till it thickened. 
Then she took the pan from the fire and set it 
over a large pan of boiling water. 

She looked at the clock. “A quarter to six,” 
she said aloud to impress it on her memory. 
“Quarter to six. It can cook an hour and a quar- 
ter. Our lesson said Took from one to three 
hours.’ Now, let’s see what i 9 next.” 

“Don’t you need another stick of wood?” a 
subdued little voice suggested. 

“Sure I do.” Peggy put it in the stove. Then 
she looked toward the open door leading into the 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 123 

little room she shared with Lois and Susie. “I 
forgot to shut that door,” she said. “I never 
thought about you waking up so early.” 

“I wanted to be awake,” said Lois, to whom 
alone of the children Peggy had entrusted the 
secret of her enterprise. “Heap o’ times my back 
is achey and tired, and Pm awake when I don’t 
want to be. Now, it’s fun to watch you. Pve 
wriggled ’round in bed so I can look in there. 
And I can help you by remembering. Quarter to 
six. And I’ll watch the fire and tell you when it 
needs wood.” 

Peggy nodded. She was too busy, thinking 
and working, to speak. She poured the prunes 
and the water in which they had soaked into a 
stewpan and set it on the fire. Then she sliced 
the bread and set the table, while the other things 
waited for the corn-meal mush to cook. 

Peggy hesitated and her cheeks flamed as she 
remembered her woeful supper experiment and 
Elmore’s sneering “victuals is victuals, and flow- 
ers is flowers.” Then she tossed her head and set 
her lips. 

“The Pattersons always have flowers on the 
table,” she said. “There ain’t no reason why we 
shouldn’t live up as much as we can.” 

She took from the table at Lois’s bedside the 
broken mug containing some flowers from Anne’s* 


124 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

party, and put it, not only on the breakfast table, 
but, with a little emphasis, in front of Elmore’s 
place. 

Then she tried the prunes with a fork. 

“They’re soft,” she said. “Now for the syrup.” 

She drained off the water, put the prunes on 
a dish, poured the water back in the stewpan, 
and added to it the four tablespoonfuls of sugar. 

While this was cooking to a syrup, Peggy 
moved about rapidly, for her duties now came 
thick and fast. She made the coffee. She toasted 
the bread. She fried the bacon and put it on a 
shallow dish and poured the gravy into a deeper 
dish. 

“Pa’s up !” Lois whispered excitedly. 

Peggy’s heart was in her mouth when she 
heard her father moving about in the next room. 
He went up the ladder-like stairs to the room 
above and wakened Jed and Elmore. Then he 
opened the door and stood on the kitchen 
threshold, first staring amazedly at Peggy and 
then looking critically around. 

P e ggy’ s cheeks went from pink to crimson. 
With shaking fingers she broke the eggs and 
dropped them into a pan of boiling water. 

“What on earth! Why, Peggy!” exclaimed 
her father. 

“I’m not wasting our victuals,” Peggy ex- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 125 

plained hastily. “Anne gave them to me for a 
try breakfast.” 

“Whew ! they smell good. I smelled ’em when 
I was half asleep and thought they were over to 
a neighbor's, and the smell made me hungry.” 

“Breakfast is ready now,” Peggy said, care- 
fully putting the eggs on the slices of toast. “It's 
a little early. I wanted to surprise you, and so 
I had to have it ready about the time you come 
to cook it.” 

The boys now scrambled downstairs and came 
into the room. Sniffing and exclaiming at the 
unusually good food, they pushed their plates for- 
ward to be helped. But Mr. Callahan did not 
shovel food on them, with the usual unseemly 
haste. He looked around. 

“You 'most ready to come, Peggy?” he asked. 
Then he said rebukingly to the boys, “Not a 
mouthful does any one else have till Peggy comes 
to the table and is helped. The girl that cooks a 
meal like this is got a right to be helped first and 
she's goin' to be, too.” 

So Peggy's was the first saucerful of the corn- 
meal mush, with a spoonful of prunes and an ex- 
tra spoonful of prune syrup. The food was good, 
but far more delicious to Peggy were the praise 
and enjoyment of her family. Smiling and 
dimpling with pleasure, she sprang up to pour 


126 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

her father’s coffee and to serve the toast with 
the poached eggs and to hand around the neatly- 
cut bread and the crisp bacon. 

"It's a bully breakfast, flowers and all,” Jed 
said, smiling at Peggy. 

She smiled back. “At Mr. Patterson’s, they 
always have flowers on the table,” she explained. 

“Well,” said her father, “the Pattersons and 
the President ain’t set down to no better break- 
fast than ours this day. Why, I feel like I can 
do two men’s work on the strength of it.” 

“Pa,” asked Peggy, “did I do well enough to — 
to keep on cooking?” 

“Keep on cookin’ ?” said her father. “Peggy, 
if you take them cookin’ dishes off my hands, I’ll 
be happier than I ever thought I could be — for 
I didn’t know I could be so miserable. I get so 
I can’t shoe horses proper — I drive the nails in 
wrong and real vicious, — for thinking of raw 
and burnin’ bread and meat. I’d nigh rather 
starve than cook another mouthful. Tim Rogan 
was plannin’ a Christmas huntin’ trip, and he 
asked me if I’d go and cook. — See that bruise? 
That’s where he hit me when I mashed his mouth 
for sayin’ ‘cook’ to me.” He turned back to ad- 
dress the boys. “Peggy don’t do this work by 
herself,” he said. “She’s to have every stick of 
wood laid ready to her hand and all errants and 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 127 

chores done for her. And you boys will do the 
washin’ of the dishes, incountin’ pots and pans.” 

“That’s girl’s work,” said Jed. “I don’t want 
to do it.” 

“All right,” said his father. “Don’t. Maybe 
’tis girl’s work. But if you don’t do it, you don’t 
eat at this shanty. That’s all I’ve got to say.” 

“Ma never made us do it,” protested Elmore. 

“Maybe ma didn’t. I’m doin’ the makin’ now.” 
And Mr. Callahan squared his shoulders with a 
new and pleasant feeling of pride in his position 
as head of the house. 

So Peggy entered upon new duties. 

On Saturday, her father paid his industrial in- 
surance, or family “sick benefit,” and put part 
of his wages in the rent mug. Into the house- 
keeping mug went the remaining nine dollars 
that seemed to Peggy such a large sum and yet 
went such a little way in providing food for the 
big, hearty family. 

Mr. Callahan planned with Peggy how to 
spend the money, and the mistakes they made 
and laughed over together brought them not only 
wisdom but also a more intimate affection. 
Peggy tried to keep the family rigidly to its al- 
lowance, but her father often “lent,” for unex- 
pected needs or luxuries, his pocket change 
earned by extra jobs. 


128 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


For some time after their experience at the 
police station, Jed and Elmore were model boys. 
They were studious, and on time and diligent at 
all their home duties. But after a week or two, 
they began to linger and dawdle and come in 
late. 

“This is three days they’ve been late,” Peggy 
commented irritatedly, one afternoon when she 
looked in vain for them to go for the groceries. 
“What mischief are they in now, I wonder? 
Susie, you’ll have to go to the grocer’s.” She 
gave the list and put the money in Susie’s hand. 

Susie ran down the hill and up the trolley track, 
and presently she strolled back, bringing two 
loaves of stale bread instead of four. 

“Ma promised me a shiny nickel, to do errants 
’thout fussing,” she explained, serenely chewing 
the gum for which she had spent the other nickel. 
“I done it, and took the nickel.” 

Peggy scolded her roundly. “Now, we ain’t 
going to have bread enough for supper,” she 
ended. 

“You can borrow from the rent money,” sug- 
gested Susie. 

“I ain’t,” said Peggy. “We’ll eat stinted. I 
ain’t going to borrow it.” 

Her father came in during the discussion and 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 129 

Jed and Elmore slipped in and sat down with a 
meek air of having been always in place. 

“Here, here! Let’s have bread enough,” said 
Mr. Callahan, taking a nickel out of his pocket. 
“Jed, you run and fetch a loaf of fresh bread.” 
But he did not reprove Susie as Peggy hoped he 
would. 

“Hateful thing! You need a good scolding.” 
Peggy glared at the offender. “Stop chewing 
that gum.” 

“Oh, let her chew!” Mr. Callahan interposed 
calmly. 

When supper was ready, Susie started to take 
her accustomed place at the table. But her 
father stopped her. 

“Stay right where you are and chew on,” he 
commanded. 

“I want my supper,” said Susie, in surprise. 
“You’ve got all your supper,” her father an- 
swered. “That’s your supper.” 

“But I want some potato gravy and bread and 
rice and primes,” she said, beginning to whimper. 
“I’m hungry.” 

“You’ve got all your supper,” her father an- 
nounced firmly. 

Peggy interceded for her. “Let her come to 
supper, pa. She’s hungry.” 

“Not enough to hurt,” said Mr. Callahan, 


130 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

calmly. “If she wasn’t hungry, ’t wouldn’t be a 
punishment.” 

Susie caught at the word “punishment.” “If 
you’ve got to punish me, do it like ma did,” she 
sobbed. “Scold me, or spank me easy — and let 
me come to supper.” 

“No,” said Mr. Callahan. “You spent the sup- 
per money. Now you go hungry.” 

“Oh, I’m so hungry ! I’m ’bout to starve ! I’m 
going to starve! I know I’m going to starve!” 
Susie wailed. 

Her woe so worked on the feelings of the 
younger children that Finn and Lois began to 
whimper. 

“She’s going to starve ! Susie’s going to 
starve! She’ll starve dead!” Finn wailed even 
more loudly than Susie. 

“Eat your supper, Finn. Hush that squallin’, 
Susie,” Mr. Callahan said sternly, “or it’s a 
whippin’ you’ll get, as well as no supper.” Then 
he said dryly to the other children, “Ain’t you 
heard tell how bears lay down in logs and hol- 
low trees and live all winter on their own fat? 
Susie’s plump, and a night of feedin’ on herself 
ain’t goin’ to hurt her, — or two nights, for that 
matter, if she ever does such a thing again.” 

“I ain’t; I ain’t ever going to; as long as I live 
I ain’t,” asseverated Susie, tearfully. 


CHAPTER XI 


I N spite of the help which Mr. Callahan re- 
quired the boys to give Peggy, the new tasks 
came hard to her young and unaccustomed 
hands. Domestic duties ate up the hours she 
wanted for lessons. Though she rose early, there 
were nearly always household tasks for which 
there was not time before school and which had 
to be crowded in with other before-supper du- 
ties. After supper she was so tired from the 
long day of home and school work that her eyes 
and brain drooped and it was hard to keep them 
fixed on her lessons. She comforted herself 
with the thought that she would get on better 
when experience gave her hands more facility in 
housework ; it took less time and was better done 
each day than the day before. 

Yet now and then, there came desperately blue 
days. Such was the Saturday morning six weeks 
after her mother went to the hospital. 

It was a gray day, shivery with a cold, 
drizzling rain. Peggy had meant to rise early 
and get a good headway on her heavy day's work. 


132 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

But on that dull, unsunned morning, she slept late 
and had to hurry about breakfast, so that her 
father might get to work in time. The children, 
not under the necessity of getting ready for 
school, lay abed long after she called them. At 
last her father came to her help. 

“Jed! Elmore! Susie!” he called sternly. 
“You get up. The one I have to call another time, 
gets no breakfast.” 

Remembering Susie’s supperless evening, they 
rose and dressed promptly. 

Mr. Callahan was missing his wife sadly, and 
he would have been amazed at being told that 
her absence had brought him any pleasure. Yet 
it was true. He enjoyed being the real head of 
his family. He had now a responsibility and in- 
terest and pleasure in his home which had been 
lacking under the efficient, self-sacrificing man- 
agement of his wife. And the responsibility and 
interest and pleasure were helping him keep 
straight. 

While he ate his breakfast that Saturday morn- 
ing, Peggy, with a great show of secrecy, filled 
his dinner pail. She put in some nicely-wrapped 
sandwiches — an invention of her own consisting 
of sausages and stewed potatoes, which her 
father said “hit the right spot” — and a piece of 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 133 

bread pudding which she had learned to make at 
cooking school. 

As soon as the hurried breakfast was over, she 
set to work on the washing which was her Satur- 
day morning task. Jed and Elmore washed the 
dishes, a “girl's job” which they resented by rat- 
tling plates and splashing dishwater in the most 
trying way. 

The baby, whom Susie had been told to tend, 
sat fretting and unheeded in the middle of the 
floor. Susie and Finn were in the girls' room, 
beside Lois's bed. The poor child had waked 
with an ache in her back and a bad temper, and 
was taking fierce pleasure in teasing the other 
children. Now and then, Finn or Susie broke in- 
to loud wails, but they could not be dragged from 
her bedside. 

“Button nose! button nose! button nose!” she 
said tauntingly to Finn. “I'm goin' to pull it off. 
Ach !” She gave the maligned member a twitch 
and then displayed the end of her thumb held 
tightly between her forefinger and her middle fin- 
ger. “See ! There 'tis. There's your old button 
nose.” 

Finn emitted an ear-piercing shriek. “Ow! 
ouch! ouch! Lois done pulled off my nose,” he 
yelled. 


134 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“Finn, hush! You know she ain’t/’ protested 
Peggy, from the kitchen. 

“She is, too!” screamed Finn. “I felt her done 
it.” 

Peggy was coming in, to put a stop to the tur- 
moil, but Lois ended it by turning her face to 
the wall. 

“Get out of my way,” she said to Susie and 
Finn. “Pm tired of you. I’m goin’ to let you 
alone now. I’m goin’ to see the Wackersons.” 

“Thank goodness !” exclaimed Peggy. 

But Finn, whose wails had been subsiding, 
burst into loud sobs. “I don’t want to be let 
alone. Don’t let Lois let me alone. Make her 
stop letting me alone,” he yelled. 

“I never saw such hateful children,” exclaimed 
Peggy. “Shut your mouth, Finn, or I’ll tie you. 
Lois, you’ve been trying yourself this day. Thank 
goodness, you’re going to play that Wackerson 
foolishness. You’ll be one trouble off my hands 
till I get ready to go to see ma.” 

Even as her words came tartly, she pulled the 
cover gently around her little sister and pushed 
the pillow into a more comfortable position. 

A minute later, Lois turned back with a howl. 
“Ow! ouch! They’ve got the mumps, the Wack- 
ersons is. And I can’t go there. I can’t go there 
at all. And I want to see them.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 135 

“What do you mean, Lois?” snapped Peggy. 
“Go on and play. You are just trying to be 
hateful and contrary.” 

“Pm not,” wailed Lois. “I want to go. I 
want to go to the Wackersons. I went to the 
door and knocked. And Miz Wackerson come 
to the door and she say Big Girl Jinny got 
mumps on one side, and Little Sis Mamie got ’em 
both sides, and she ’specting Tom Boy to have 
’em turrible bad. And she say I mustn’t come 
in, for fear of ketching ’em. Ow !” Lois ended 
with a howl. 

“Gracious!” Peggy said sharply. “Mercy 
sake, pretend they’re well, and go on and play 
like you always do. Why do you shut yourself 
out of fun, saying they are sick?” 

“If they’ve got mumps, they’ve got mumps,” 
sobbed Lois. “And I can’t go there. Ma say 
mumps is ketching,, and she never let one of us 
go nigh the Rogans when they had ’em. And 
I’m so lonesome ’thout the Wackersons.” 

She stoutly refused to pretend away the illness, 
and spent a doleful morning, only enlivened by 
Mrs. Wackerson’s coming to the door to give a 
full account of the illness of the children. They 
caught mumps, so Lois reported, from the 
McGinley boy who came over to play. Mrs. 
Wackerson asked him what was the matter with 


136 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

his jaw and he told her expressly it was tooth- 
ache. She suspected what was the trouble, and 
she tried him with a bite of sour pickle “and 
he shrieked something awful.” And then she 
knew what was the matter, but it was too late to 
save her children ; they had caught it. 

The dreary morning dragged past. The cold 
rain drizzled down unrelentingly and Peggy 
looked forward with dread to a rainy afternoon. 
But about midday the wind rose and blew away 
the sullen clouds. 

And as cheering as the sunshine was a little 
visit from Anne Lewis, who brought some fash- 
ion magazines for the children to make paper 
dolls. Susie and Lois and Finn played happily 
with these, while Anne helped Peggy with a dif- 
ficult English lesson. 

Then Peggy hung out the clothes, and put some 
bread and a dish of potatoes on the table for 
luncheon. 

“Anne says of course Fll get that scholarship 
prize,” she announced to Jed and Elmore. “And 
wouldn’t it be grand if one of you would happen 
along in a fire or a runaway and save somebody 
and get that hero prize?” 

“Nothing ever happens when Pm ’round,” said 
Jed. “I hadn’t more’n turned the corner from 
M Street, coming home last Friday, when that 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 137 

runaway horse came tearing along, and them two 
Bailey kids were playing in the middle of the 
street, where they had been told time and time 
not to go. And Tim Barney grabbed them and 
drug them out of the way. Now he's got a chanst 
at that prize, — just by loafing on the street 
where he hadn't ought to been, and them good- 
for-nothing Baileys being where they hadn't 
ought to been, too." Jed kicked his heels together, 
in gloomy protest against the injustice of the 
world. 

“That's just the way," agreed Elmore. “Don't 
nothing come our way. Now, I saw the prettiest 


“Scat!" interrupted Jed, fiercely. 

Elmore started. “I ain't told nothing. I ain't 
going to." 

“Is anybody said you was?" demanded Jed. 

Then, for no reason that Peggy could see, both 
boys giggled. 

“What on earth makes you act so foolish ?" she 
asked irritatedly. “Talking of cats, have either 
of you seen Dirty Candy? Lois keeps on asking 
for him, and he ain't been here to-day." 

“How could we see him, if he ain't been here?" 
Jed asked pertly. 

“Maybe he runned away," said Elmore. 
“ 'Cause you talked 'bout whipping him, just for 


138 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

his getting in the cupboard and on the table when 
he’s hungry. I’d run away, if I was him.” 

Both of the boys rushed out of the room and 
Peggy heard their stifled laughter break into 
ringing peals. 

“What are they up to now?” she wondered, 
gazing after them. 

But she had scant time to consider the matter. 
The winter afternoons were short and she must 
hurry to the hospital. She sent Susie and Finn 
to visit the Rogans. She pulled Lois’s bed nearer 
the window. Then she carried Danny to Prilla 
Hicks’s. 

At last she was ready to start to the Tubercu- 
losis Hospital, carrying in one hand a bundle for 
her mother and in the other hand her spelling 
book. Peggy was beginning to learn to take 
advantage of spare minutes. She fixed her eyes 
resolutely on her book, as she went along the 
broad, pleasant streets overarched with trees. At 
last the car stopped at the entrance to the hos- 
pital grounds. Peggy got out and followed the 
winding road up the wooded hillside. A smiling 
nurse directed her to Mrs. Callahan, basking in 
the sunshine on an upstairs porch. 

“Ma!” cried Peggy, gazing on the dear face 
and realizing more fully how precious her mother 
was and how ill she had been. The strained, nerv- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 139 

ous look was giving place to the tired one that 
comes when an overworked person relaxes and 
begins to rest. The hollow cheeks were filling 
out and were gaining a wholesome color. “Oh, 
ma, how we miss you! You’ve got to stay here 
till you get well.” 

Mrs. Callahan clasped Peggy tight. 

“How’s your pa?” That was always the first 
question. “And Lois? And Danny-boy? And 
Finn? And Susie? And Jed and Elmore? Does 
your pa get home reg’lar from work? How do 
you make out ’bout school ? and meals ? If they’d 
only agree to my cornin’ home onct a week to 
cook up a pile of victuals ! Does your pa get off 
in good time mornin’s for his work? Does he 
look worrited and lonesome of evenin’s? Peggy, 
child, tell me all about everything.” 

“You ask questions so fast, you don’t leave me 
room to do nothing but nod and say 'yes’ or 'no,’ ” 
laughed Peggy. “We are all well. And see what 
I’ve brought you.” 

She opened her bundle and took out the home 
presents. There was a piece of the bread pud- 
ding she made for dinner the evening before, that 
her father said “was good enough for the Presi- 
dent.” Lois sent her prettiest paper doll. Susie 
put in a paper box she made at school — one edge 
had come ungummed, but it was as good as new 


140 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

if you didn’t want to put anything in it. There 
was a stick of chewing gum from Finn. Jed 
sent his weekly report and Elmore his Sunday- 
school ticket with a motto on it. Danny-boy sent 
two kisses and a double handful of love. And 
pa said he was coming to see her to-morrow and 
bring her the dollar he got for an extra job. 

Then, interrupted by and answering a hundred 
eager questions, Peggy gave a minute account of 
the family history since her last visit to her 
mother. 

Father regular! Why, she didn’t have to look 
at the clock to know when it was six o’clock. His 
foot was on the porch to the minute, unless he 
stayed to do an extra job. Then he gave the 
children nickels and they went to the movies — 
all but Peggy; she stayed at home with Lois and 
studied. Oh, she was studying so hard ! 

Prilla Hicks cooked their oatmeal on her iron- 
ing days, and would cook the mush but pa said 
Peggy made it better. Mrs. McGinley put the 
twins to bed and mended their trousers the day 
before; wild horses couldn’t drag out of them 
how they tore their trousers and where they’d 
been. 

Peggy was keeping up in her lessons, in spite 
of all the work. She was ahead of everybody ex- 
cept Albert Fischer. He was just a little ahead 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 141 

of her in English, but her arithmetic and history 
lessons were the best. So there you were. And 
she was going to catch up in English, as soon as 
she had a little more time for lessons. She had 
brought her spelling book to-day and had learned 
Monday’s lesson, and on the way home she would 
finish reviewing for next week’s test. Oh, she 
was going to win that scholarship prize! 

And she explained to her mother for the doz- 
enth time how grand it would be to get it and 
how much help the money would be to them. 
After going to Business High School, she could 
get a grand place in an office, with big wages 
to help the family. 

Then Peggy asked and her mother answered 
many a question about housekeeping — the burden 
of which was to do the most with the least 
money. 

“Always keep potatoes on hand,” her mother 
told her. “They’re so fillin’. And dried apples. 
And corn meal for mush. Make potato gravy 
real often. It’s good and costs next to nothin’. 
It’s just potatoes and water and a piece of meat 
— big if you’ve got it, but you can do with little 
or none — saltin’ it real tasty. If there’s molasses 
for the children, and meat and coffee for your 
pa, you can always get along.” 

And then Mrs. Callahan told about her hospi- 


142 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

tal life, gossiping pleasantly about the doctors 
and the nurses and the food and the other pa- 
tients. 

“There’s not only three good meals, but milk 
and eggs between times, all we want,” she said. 
“And do you see that woman — Mrs. Stanyon she 
is — crocheting in the corner? She’s been here 
going on six years and it’s not one cross, hard 
word she’s heard from nurse or doctor. Ain’t 
that wonderful? They look so glad to help us. 
The doctor talks as proud as me about my gainin’ 
four pounds and bein’ better of my cough.” 

All too soon the time came for Peggy to start 
home. 

“And remember, Peggy,” was her mother’s 
parting charge, “children need to be loved and 
praised, as well as have Mr. Make Mind after 
them. Oh, I’m so proud about your pa! Ev’ry 
night reg’lar !” 

“Yes, ma’m, reg’lar. And last rent day ev’ry 
cent of the money was in the rent mug and pa 
told me to go to Jobson’s and pay it. And so I 
did. The receipt is there now in the mug. I 
told the children pa’d beat ’em, if they so much 
as touched it. And pa told me to go by the gro- 
cer’s to-day and order Sunday things, to be sent 
after seven o’clock when he’ll be there to pay. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 143 

I must hurry home now and have supper ready 
’gainst he comes.” 

Peggy took the bundle of clothes that her 
mother had mended, and started home, heartened 
by her mother’s praise and counsel and laden 
with love and messages for the home folks. 

Mrs. Callahan opened the bundle of clothes 
on which she was allowed to sew an hour or two 
a day. Her hands lingered lovingly over the lit- 
tle ragged garments. 

“I really believe,” a nurse said, laughing kind- 
ly, “that you put in patches and rip them out and 
put them in again, so as to make the work last 
longer.” 

“It’s like bein’ with my children,” said Mrs. 
Callahan, laughing too, but wistful. “Whiles I’m 
sewin’, it seems ’most like I’ve got them with me. 
I ’most catch myself sayin’, ‘You, Jed, get off 
that box! One of them nails’ll snag your coat.’ 
Look at the seat of Elmore’s pants! He will 
set ’round and wear ’em out. I wonder how him 
and Jed get all this red mud on their clothes? 
Poor little Finn! He gets holes in his stockin’ 
heels. He stomps so hard ! Bless their hearts, 
all of them.” Mrs. Callahan folded the shabby 
garments, as if she were caressing her absent 
children. “I hope Peggy’ll get home in time to 


144 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

have supper ready for her pa when he comes in. 
She stayed 'most too late." 

Peggy was delayed by a behind-time car, but 
she ordered the groceries and went home and 
cooked supper and had it ready and waiting — 
and still her father did not come. 


CHAPTER XII 


P EGGY'S heart sank. She went again and 
again to the door and looked out in the 
gathering dusk. She tried to cheer herself 
with one after another of the dozen perfectly 
good reasons any one of which might explain 
why her father was detained. 

He might have stopped at the grocer's, as he 
had done before, to add to her order something 
for a Sunday treat. But that would have delayed 
him only a few minutes. 

Well, there might have been extra work at the 
shop. Draymen often came in, late and hurried, 
to have their horses shod — and extra work meant 
extra pay. Why, he had given each of them a 
nickel for the movies when he came in half an 
hour late on Tuesday. But this was Saturday 
night — and — and 

Now it was more than an hour after his usual 
home-coming time. It might have taken him 
that long to go with the boys by the store, to look 
at the suits he had half promised to buy. 

But he had not gone there. While Peggy was 
145 


146 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

trying to make herself believe he had, Jed came 
in and said they had not seen their father. He 
and Elmore did go by the shop, but they were a 
few minutes late and one of the men told them 
their father had started home as soon as the 
whistle blew. 

“Did — did you ask who he was with?” in- 
quired Peggy. “And where have you been, this 
hour since then?” 

“I didn't ask,” said Jed, ignoring the second 
question. 

But Peggy, remembering her mother's injunc- 
tion to “keep track of the boys,” persisted. 
“Where have you been, Jed? and you, Elmore?” 

“That's for me to know and you to find out,” 
said Jed, winking at Elmore. 

Peggy was too worried about her father to 
persist. The supper which she had prepared in 
such haste, fearing it would not be ready for him, 
was getting cold. 

“I wonder, I wonder where he is,” Peggy said, 
going to the door for the dozenth time, to peer 
and listen into the darkness. In her heart a fear 
was growing, greater than the wonder. 

Lois put the fear into words. “Maybe the 
gang's got him. Peggy, is the gang ketchin', 
like mumps?” 

To the younger children, “the gang,” which 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 147 

their mother said was the cause of the absences 
and queer conduct of their father, was still a 
mysterious ailment. But the older children were 
beginning to understand. 

“The gang ain’t nothin’ but folks what run to- 
gether. Most times, it’s just for fun. Some- 
times ” Jed glanced at Peggy and stopped. 

Perhaps girls didn’t know. 

Ah ! but poor Peggy did know. And she knew, 
too, that Saturday evening, wage day, was the 
time when her father usually succumbed to the 
failing which her mother loyally and stoutly at- 
tributed to the wiles of bad companions. 

By this time, the baby was fretting for food 
and the other children were cross and hungry. 

“Ma didn’t make us wait for pa,” Susie re- 
minded Peggy. “Sometimes he didn’t come till 
I was ’sleep. Let’s eat.” 

“Guess we might as well,” Peggy said deject- 
edly. She put aside, to keep warm for her father, 
a liberal portion of the best of their simple food, 
and then began to divide the remainder among 
the children. 

While she was thus busied, footsteps were 
heard outside, first on the stepping-stones in the 
yard, then coming up the steps, and tripping on 
the board nailed over a hole in the porch floor. 


148 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Her father was familiar with that rough place 
and would not trip over it unless — unless 

As Peggy, her heart in her ears, feared and 
listened for the next step, steady or unsteady, 
there came a knock at the door. 

It was the grocer's boy with the things she had 
ordered on her way home. But there was no 
money to pay for them, until her father came. 
Grumbling about the long walk for nothing, the 
boy turned to go, with the basket on his arm. 

“Oh ! can’t you leave the things ?” asked Peggy, 
desperately. “It’s breakfast, dinner, supper, — 
all our Sunday eatings. Not goodies, just the 
every-day victuals. Father will send you the 
money as soon as he comes. I — I’m looking for 
him every minute.” 

The boy shook his head. Mr. Callahan was 
too well known in his neighborhood for his family 
to have credit. “ ’Course I can’t leave ’em. The 
boss would send me straight back for ’em. When 
your father comes home, — if he gets home to- 
night with any money — he can send for ’em. We 
keep open till ten o’clock Sat’days. I’ll keep the 
things bundled up, in case he comes.” 

“Wait one minute,” said Peggy. “Give me 
some bread — six loaves. Oh! I ain’t got but a 
dime. I thought there was another nickel in the 
housekeeping mug. Oh, me! And we ought to 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 149 

have the dozen loaves for Sunday. The children 
will be so hungry !” 

“I’d like to leave the things, — honest I would,” 
said the kind-hearted boy, “but I’ve got strict 
orders. I sure am sorry.” 

“I know,” said Peggy, simply. “Folks is al- 
ways sorry for us.” The pathetic helplessness of 
her tone was more moving than her appeal. 

The boy hesitated and began to fumble in his 
pockets for small change. “ ’Bout that 
bread ” he began awkwardly. 

But Jed came to the rescue. “I’ve got a quar- 
ter, Peggy,” he said. “I’ll lend you the loan of 
it, if you’ll pay me back out of the first house- 
keeping money. I’ve got a special use for this, 
o’ Monday. And Elmore’s got seventeen cents, 
he’ll loan you same way.” 

“There’s my five cents you can have,” said 
Lois. 

“Speak for yourself, Jed,” grumbled Elmore, 
fumbling in his pocket. “You’re always sayin’ 
what I’ll do.” 

“Well, you ’most always do what. I say, don’t 
you ? And you always try to do what I do. Copy 
cat!” 

“I ain’t goin’ to.” Elmore squared himself 
sullenly. 

“Come on !” Jed said persuasively. “We’ve got 


150 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

to help Peggy — and us, too — out of this hole. We 
want something to eat to-morrow. Eve fished up 
all I had. Don’t be a pig. Hand out that sev- 
enteen cents.” 

“Ain’t got but sixteen. You made me pay the 
extra cent for that ” 

“Shut up!” commanded Jed, looking appre- 
hensively at Peggy. 

But she was busy, trying to select from the gro- 
ceries the ones for fifty-six cents that would best 
tide them over Sunday — a dozen loaves of stale 
bread, twelve cents’ worth of stew meat, a few 
potatoes and onions, and a little coffee for her 
father. She must have that, even if she stinted 
the stew. 

After supper, the children sat around, fretting 
because their father had not come, bringing 
promised nickels for the movies — their usual Sat- 
urday night treat. 

Lois, who had been a whining nuisance all day, 
was now the only serene one. She turned her 
back on the fretful children and played content- 
edly in her world of make-believe. 

“Shan’t. Pm just startin’ to the Wackersons,” 
she said, when Finn held out his fingers and 
asked her to play William-Come-Trimbleton. 

“You said them Wackersons had mumps, and 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 151 

you couldn’t go there till they got well,” he peev- 
ishly reminded her. 

“I couldn’t,” said Lois, placidly. “But doctor 
came and said they’d be well to-morrow, and I’m 
playing it’s to-morrow.” 

“That ain’t fair. Is it, Peggy?” protested 
Susie. 

Peggy did not answer. Her ears were alert 
for coming footsteps. She had a book open be- 
fore her and was endeavoring to fix her mind 
on her lesson, but her thoughts wandered to hopes 
and fears about her father’s return and to ques- 
tions about how they could get on, now “the 
gang” had got him again. Of course that was 
what had happened. In the shadow of past ex- 
perience, fear and doubt faded in Peggy’s mind 
into sad certainty. 

When her father had come home without his 
wages, her mother’s sewing money had been the 
sole dependence of the family. Without that, 
what would they do next week? Peggy would 
have to go to Miss Hartman at the Charities 
office and request help — and have questions 
asked that would bring out the fact that her 
father had — that the gang had him again. How 
her mother would hate that ! 

Mercy! She wasn’t learning a word of this 
history lesson. Perhaps she could do better with 


152 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

arithmetic. She opened the book and attacked 
one after another of the problems — with small 
success. The family problem of feeding seven 
hungry children, without money, was more imme- 
diate and engrossing than problems about fencing 
five-acre lots and papering sixteen-foot rooms. 

Jed put up his books and nudged Elmore, who 
stopped in the middle of the exercise he was writ- 
ing. They had crept to the door, with their caps 
under their jackets, before Peggy noticed them. 

She did not utter the reproof that they ex- 
pected, the tiresome reminder that they mustn’t 
be out later than eight o’clock and it was past 
eight now. 

Instead, she turned to her brothers for help. 
“Boys,” she said, “you know Sat’day nights, 
when father and Mr. McGinley come late, Mrs. 
McGinley goes to look for ’em. Maybe pa 
wouldn’t be very mad if — if I’d remind him about 
coming home before all the money’s gone. And I 
• — I — I — don’t know where to look for him.” 

Peggy brought out the falsehood pitifully. She 
knew too well the shuttered doors and gay win- 
dows behind which Mrs. McGinley searched for 
her husband those weary nights, while Mrs. Cal- 
lahan sat at home and sewed and waited. If only 
they could get her father home to-night, before 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 153 

“the gang” had fuddled his brain and emptied his 
purse ! 

Peggy went on. “And I hate to go by myself. 
I — I thought maybe you might go with me.” 

“Sure!” said Jed. 

It was slow Elmore who bettered the offer. 
“You stay at home, Peggy. We — we know where 
to look for pa. We’ll ask him to come home.” 

Peggy agreed gladly and the boys changed 
their furtive preparations to open, proud ones. 
They put on their caps and buttoned up their 
coats and exchanged suggestions with Peggy as 
to what they should say to their father. 

After the boys slammed the door behind them, 
Peggy took up her book again and compelled her- 
self to work one problem after another. But the 
hard life problems before her — poor inexperi- 
enced child ! — kept getting topmost in her mind. 

At last she put aside her books and turned to 
her Saturday night duties. She gave Dan and 
Finn their baths and put them to bed; she made 
up Lois’s bed; she oversaw Susie’s bath and put 
her hair in papers for Sunday curls; she laid out 
the boys’ and her father’s clean clothes. 

When the boys came in after nine o’clock with 
no news of their father, Peggy was dismayed. 
She had dreaded, indeed, where and how they 
would find him. But at that moment the worst 


154 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

of her fears realized would have seemed better 
than this uncertainty. 

“We looked in every one of the places on M 
Street,” said Jed. “We peeked in back rooms, 
too. And we saw all ‘the gang/ Old Walt Jones 
and Mr. Rogan were there, and we asked if they’d 
seen pa. And Mr. Rogan cussed and said pa 
don’t go with gentlemen now; he’s a tightwad 
and a spile sport.” 

“That means he ain’t been with ’em and they 
ain’t got any of his money to-night,” said Peggy. 

“What do you guess has become of him, 
Peggy?” asked Elmore. 

Peggy shook her head. 

Susie spoke up. “Well — if he don’t get home 
to-night — or some time next week — the cops can 
look him up. Like they did Mr. Beekman.” 

“Mr. Beekman jumped in the canal and 
drowned,” said Elmore. 

“Mrs. Beekman says he fell in,” Jed reminded 
his brother. 

“Whichaway ’t was, he drowned,” said Elmore. 

Peggy shuddered. New visions of horror pre- 
sented themselves to her mind. Then she gath- 
ered herself together sturdily. “Mr. Beekman 
lived down by the canal,” she said. “Pa don’t 
have to go nigh there. He’s just loafing ’round 
somewhere and he’ll be home presently. You 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 155 

boys better scrub up and get out the way before 
he comes in. Go in the kitchen. Your water’s 
hot on the stove.” 

The boys bathed and went to bed in their attic 
room. But Peggy sat by the dying fire, strug- 
gling with her lessons and fearing and waiting — 
waiting 

At last she heard footsteps — heavy, dragging 
footsteps — and voices. A few times, it had been 
so bad that neighbors had brought her father 
home. Poor little Peggy opened the door and 
stood face to face with the policeman on that 
beat, Officer Brady. 


CHAPTER XIII 


H EH, sissy! We’re bringing your fa- 
ther home,” said the policeman, in 
a voice made especially cheerful for 
the occasion. 

Peggy stood still in the door, with a heart-sink- 
ing feeling that her worst fears were realized. 

“Stand out of the way, sissy, and have the bed 
ready,” came another voice out of the darkness. 
“Oh!” Peggy gave a frightened little cry. 
Then her father spoke in a clear, sober voice. 
“Don’t be scared, my girl. I’m not hurt bad.” 

Father hurt! In the tumult of fear and — yes, 
of relief — Peggy found herself mechanically 
obeying orders. She pulled chairs out of the way, 
moved Finn, still sleeping soundly, from her 
father’s bed to her own. 

The men laid Mr. Callahan down with rough 
carefulness. 

“He’s got a sprained ankle. I done sent for 
the doctor. I guess you’d better have some hot 
water. Doctor may want it,” said Officer Brady. 

Without a word, Peggy went into the kitchen, 
stirred up the coals, added fuel, and put on a ket- 
tle of water. Then she returned to the room 
where Officer Brady and Mr. McGinley were 
156 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 1 57 

standing, with their backs to the fire and their 
hands clasped behind them. 

“What else must I do?” inquired Peggy. 

“Nothing, sissy, till doctor comes,” said the po- 
liceman. “I left a call for him, as soon as I found 
out what was the matter.” 

“Took you times to find out,” complained Mr. 
Callahan, with grim humor. “Soon as I get up, 
I’m goin’ to apply for your job. Sure, a police- 
man ought to know a sober man from a drunk.” 

The other men laughed. Peggy felt relieved; 
things were not at their worst, so long as men 
could laugh and joke. She picked up her father's 
hat from the floor, hung it on its accustomed peg, 
and then stood anxiously beside the bed. 

“Well, yes,” Officer Brady agreed with Mr. 
Callahan. “But, you know, Callahan — and Sat- 
urday night, too ” 

“Sure I know,” Mr. Callahan said good-hu- 
moredly. “There, there, Peggeen, my girl ! I ain’t 
so bad off.” He put out a hand to pat Peggy’s 
and gathered her cold trembling little fingers in 
his big warm clasp. Then he went on, to the po- 
liceman. “And I know how it hurt when you 
stood me up on that broke ankle. To be made 
to stand on a broke ankle ! Seein’ as you got me 
home at last, I won’t wish that luck on you, 
Brady.” 


158 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“What makes you talk about its being broke?” 
protested Officer Brady. “It's a sprain you got, 
twisting your foot when the car started. You’ll 
be all right in a day or so.” 

“Sure!” agreed Mr. McGinley. “And you’ve 
got Sunday to rest. I’m going to bring you my 
boss’s horse to shoe on Monday.” 

Mr. Callahan grunted dissent. “Broke,” he 
announced firmly. “That fool Williams — I’d 
like to wring his neck. Just slowin’ up, ’stead of 
stoppin’ on that corner — where they got the street 
all tore up, too — and then startin’ ofif with a jerk.” 

“He’ll be fired all right, when you report him,” 
asserted Mr. McGinley, with grim satisfaction. 
“There’ve been complaints before and he’s been 
told he’s got to go next time he gets in trouble. 
He’d have been fired when he smashed into that 
car last summer — though some folks say the 
drunk driver was to fault — but his wife went to 
the boss and put up such a pitiful tale about her 
and the young uns that they gave him another 
try.” 

“A man like that ain’t got no business on the 
road,” said Officer Brady. 

“Not a bit, not a bit,” agreed Mr. Callahan. 
He moved restlessly and stifled a groan of pain. 
“Why in thunder don’t doctor come?” he asked 
crossly. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 159 

"He’ll be here presently,” said Officer Brady. 
"I’ll give him another call, if I don’t meet him. 
Wisht I could stay till he comes. But you know 
how ’tis, Callahan. Saturday night. You boys 
keep me busy.” 

"Yes ! I know,” agreed Mr. Callahan. "Much 
obliged, Brady, for helpin’ me home. Hope I’ll 
never have to do as much for you. And say, — 
you needn’t be callin’ names about what motor- 
man was on that car.” 

"It ought to be reported,” said the policeman, 
turning at the door. "They’ll have all the facts 
from you when you get to the hospital, if that’s 
a bad sprain.” 

" ’Tain’t sprained. It’s broke, I tell you, man. 
And I ain’t goin’ to no hospital. Missis is one 
too many there, with all these children at home. 
But ’tain’t your business to peach on Williams. 
Nor yours, McGinley.” 

The men agreed, grinning. 

"Just as you say, Callahan.” 

"If you want to let the fool go ” 

"Let him go!” exploded Mr. Callahan. "The 
first thing I’ll do when I get up from here will 
be to punch his head and give him a genteel beat- 
in’, but ’tain’t no use puttin’ him out of his job, 
for his folks to suffer. I’ll settle him myself.” 


160 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


Brady laughed. “Choose your time when Pm 
out of the way. I’ll be deef long as I can.” 

The policeman returned to his duty, and Mc- 
Ginley, a slow, blunt-featured, red-faced fellow, 
sat by the fire, awaiting the coming of the doctor. 

Peggy sat beside her father and listened to 
his account of the accident. 

He had left the shop promptly, with his wages, 
to go out Northwest to get the extra money from 
a lady who had driven by at lunch time, with a 
horse that had a loose shoe. He had some trouble 
finding the place. Then the lady was at dinner 
and the servant would not call her, so he had to 
wait. When she came out, she asked pardon for 
his being kept waiting and paid his carfare extra, 
and he started home. 

When he reached his corner, the motorman 
merely slowed up and then started the car with 
a jerk. It wouldn’t have mattered so much, but 
the pavement was torn up for repairs and he 
stepped on some cobblestones. A loose stone 
rolled under his foot and he fell with his weight 
on his turned ankle. 

“And the ankle bone’s broke,” he insisted in 
the face of Mr. McGinley’s dissent. “I drug 
myself to the sidewalk,” he went on, “and pres- 
ently Brady came along. He thought — well, he 
tried to make me stand up, and gee !” He 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 161 


frowned at the recollection and gave a restless 
jerk which brought a sharp twinge of pain that 
cut short his speech. 

There was a moment’s silence. 

Then he said, “Peggy, what about the grocer- 
ies?” 

“The boy came with ’em,” said Peggy, “but I 
didn’t have the money. I had a dime and Jed and 
Elmore lent me forty-one cents, and Lois lent me 
five. We got some bread, and things for a stew, 
and your coffee — ma said let that always come 
next to bread.” 

“What about gettin’ ’em now? If the boys 


“It’s after ten,” said Peggy. “The grocery’s 
closed. We c’n make out to-morrow, — if we c’n 
get things Monday,” she said doubtfully. 

“Sure we can,” said her father. “The money — 
my wages and that extry — is in my pocket book. 
Feel in the right-hand breeches pocket and get it 
out.” 

During this intimate discussion, Mr. McGinley 
was clearing his throat, whistling, and poking the 
fire, — making an elaborate pretense of not hear- 
ing. Now, however, he spoke briskly. 

“There’s your sick benefit, Callahan,” he said, 
speaking of the insurance that workmen carry 
as a prudent matter-of-course. “ ’Tain’t no big 


162 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


sum, but it’ll come in handy. And you’ll get good 
damages from the street car folks.” 

“The only trouble about damages,” Mr. Calla- 
han spoke hesitatingly, “is — is Williams. He’ll 
get fired — as he ought to, blame the sorry scoun- 
drel.” 

There was a brief silence, while the two men 
considered the matter. 

“It’s bread and meat for your children,” Mc- 
Ginley said. 

“That’s what it is,” assented Mr. Callahan. 
“And there’s all them other children — five or six 
dirty- faced tow-heads — and that little woman 
like a scared rabbit. What can you expect of the 
man? When he gets away from that bunch and 
clamps his hand on the car lever, he feels as big 
as Teddy Roosevelt. The blamed fool! If I had 
him by the neck right now, I’d leave him know 
what cobblestones and ditches feel like.” Mr. Cal- 
lahan moved angrily and then bit back a groan. 

Peggy squeezed his hand and bit her lips in 
sympathy with his pain. 

“He ought to lose his job,” Mr. McGinley got 
back to the point from which he had started and 
was ready to begin all over again. 

So was Mr. Callahan. “Yes,” he said. “But 
there’s the woman and children.” 

The discussion was cut short by the arrival of 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 163 

Dr. Malone. With quick, firm, gentle hands, he 
examined the injured ankle. 

‘TPs broken/’ he said. 

“Told you so. I knew ’t wasn’t sprained. I 
heard the bone snap.” Mr. Callahan looked tri- 
umphantly at Mr. McGinley. 

“Yes, it’s a break, a bad break.” The doctor 
frowned down at Mr. Callahan. “How did it 
happen ?” 

“I was gettin’ off the car at the corner where 
the street’s tore up,” explained Mr. Callahan, 
“and my foot turned on a loose cobblestone and 
I fell, all my weight on that ankle.” 

“I see,” said the doctor, unsympathetically. 
“That corner’s a bad place. It needs a sober 
head and a steady foot.” He emphasized the ad* 
jectives. 

Mr. Callahan did not answer. 

“He was as sober as yourself, sir,” said Mr. 
McGinley. “It was a nasty twist he got, gettin’ 
off the car. The motorman just slacked up and 
started off with a jerk.” 

“You shut up,” growled Mr. Callahan. 

<f Well,” said the doctor, briskly, “I’ll call an 
ambulance and we’ll get you to the hospital and 
set the bone as quickly as possible.” 

He was starting out when he was called back 


164 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

by Mr. Callahan’s determined protest. “Sir, sir! 
I ain’t goin’ to no hospital, sir. You can set me 
and fix me at home, like plenty people have done.” 

“Pshaw, man!” said the doctor, impatiently. 
“You’ll be much better ofif in the hospital.” 

“Sure!” agreed Mr. Callahan. “But who’ll be 
here to see to these children? — Peggy here the 
oldest of the bunch and her not fourteen. If I 
go, wife’s bound to come home. And she don’t 
want a backset now. The treatment’s doin’ her 
a world of good. No, you just fix me up, sir, 
and leave me be at home, where I can see to the 
children. We’ve got grand neighbors. They’ll 
help Peggy do for me — and we’ll worry along 
somehow — like folks do, when they’ve got to.” 

The doctor disapproved of this, but he had 
nothing to suggest to which Mr. Callahan would 
agree. So the doctor yielded. He sent for the 
articles needed. The broken ankle was set, the 
bandages and splints were adjusted. 

Peggy, pale but resolute, stood near, never in 
the way, but ready, at a word, for any service. 

Dr. Malone did not seem to notice her, but as 
he was starting away he put a kind hand on her 
shoulder. “Poor little shoulders !” he said. 
“They’re brave and willing: I wonder if they’ll 
be strong enough? Well, well! We’ll see. 
Good-night, good-night.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 165 

As Mr. McGinley started home, Mr. Callahan 
said, “You heard what I said, McGinley, about 
gettin’ hurt. You say the same, you mutton- 
head. I can get my sick benefit on the doctor’s 
certificate. What the inspector don’t know, ain’t 
goin’ to hurt him. He’s got no call to know 
about Williams.” 

“You’ve got to tell, to get street-car damages,” 
said Mr. McGinley. “That’ll be two or three 
hundred dollars. And Williams had ought to be 
fired.” 

“I’ll settle him as soon as I get up,” Mr. Cal- 
lahan said. 

“I hope you’ll learn him some sense,” grumbled 
Mr. McGinley. 

“You can’t learn sense to that fool,” Mr. Calla- 
han replied. “But one thing sure, I’ll take it out 
of his hide — the sorry cuss !” 

“He ought to be reported,” insisted Mr. Mc- 
Ginley. 

Mr. Callahan agreed with dissent. “Sure. 
But there’s that stick-in-the-mud of a woman and 
all them children.” 

The argument was not repeated a fourth time 
only because at that minute Mr. McGinley’s eye 
fell on the clock. “Who’d thought ’t was two 
o’clock?” he exclaimed. “Bet my old woman has 
raked M Street with a fine-tooth comb, looking 


166 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


for me. Good-night, Callahan. IT1 be in to-mor- 
row to see how you are getting on. Or send for 
me, if you want me in the night. Good-night.” 

“I'm going to leave Finn in my bed, pa, and 
lay down on your bed/’ Peggy said, when at last 
she and her father were left alone. “If you need 
anything, you can reach out and shake me awake. 
I sleep so turrible sound.” 

While she was getting ready for bed, she stum- 
bled over a book on the floor. It was the arithme- 
tic she had dropped when she rose to admit the 
men bringing her father. How long a time 
seemed between her and that three hours ago, 
when she was struggling with papering and fenc- 
ing problems ! 

‘Tm glad I got all those examples,” she said to 
herself. “I can go over the hist'ry, Monday 
morning.” 

“Peggy,” her father's voice came to her sleepy 
ear. “We've got not to let your ma know about 
me. If she did, she'd be home from that hospital, 
quick as car and foot could bring her. She's got 
to stay there and get well.” 

“Yes, pa,” yawned Peggy. 

“I'll be well soon. Well enough to maul Wil- 
liams.” 

“Ye-e-es.” And with the drowsy sibilant, 
Peggy was asleep. 


CHAPTER XIV 


I T seemed to Peggy that her tired head had 
just touched the pillow and her sleepy eyes 
had been but a minute closed, when she was 
vigorously shaken by Jed. 

“Didn’t you hear the clock alarm?” he de- 
manded. “It’s long past getting-up time. We 
won’t get to Sunday school in time to get tickets, 
if you don’t hurry breakfast. I went in your 
room and waked up Finn ’stead of you. What’s 
he doing in your bed ? And you here ?” 

Peggy sprang up, rubbing her eyes and won- 
dering why she was on the bed beside her father, 
instead of in her accustomed place. Then all the 
events of the night came back to her. 

She looked anxiously at her father who was 
still asleep. 

“Start the kitchen fire whiles I dress,” she 
whispered to Jed. “I’ll be there in a minute and 
tell you — oh, I’ve got so much to tell you!” 

She dressed quickly and went into the kitchen 
and gave a dramatic account of the night’s 
events, first to Jed, then over again to Elmore, 
167 


168 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


and then over again to Susie, as they came strag- 
gling in, one by one. This still further delayed 
her culinary duties. But there was one good 
thing about not having much to cook — the cook- 
ing did not take long. There was only some 
bread for breakfast, and the oatmeal — of which 
Prilla Hicks, according to her kind custom, had 
cooked several days’ supply on her “ironing fire.” 

Peggy put some oatmeal in the double boiler 
to warm. There were two eggs in the cupboard, 
which she made into an omelet. She added flour 
and water to increase its bulk and put in the cold 
meat left for her father’s supper the night before ; 
and the result was a dish of which she was proud. 

The omelet was divided between Lois and Mr. 
Callahan. With a bowl of milk toast, it made a 
breakfast which they ate with a relish that Peggy 
enjoyed hugely. 

For the other children, healthy hunger was a 
sauce that sweetened their simple breakfast of 
oatmeal and bread and molasses. 

After breakfast, Peggy helped the other chil- 
dren dress for Sunday school. Then she put the 
house in order. “Eve got to miss this one morn- 
ing,” she said. “I promised ma I’d go reg’lar, but 
she didn’t know what was going to happen. I 
know she’d ’scuse me this time.” 

“You’ve got to go to church,” said Mr. Calla- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 169 

han, firmly. “You. ain’t going to act heathen, just 
because I’ve got a game foot. Sure, you’ve got 
to go to church, Peggy. Your ma’s a mighty 
hand for church-goin’ and she’ll ask you first 
thing about that.” 

“But ma won’t see me to ask,” said Peggy. 

“Sure she’ll see you,” said her father. “I can’t 
go to the hospital, like I promised, this afternoon. 
You’ll have to go and make a lot of excuses 
about me.” He went on, in answer to the look of 
doubt on Peggy’s face. “Sure, Peggy! You 
know, if your ma knew I was hurt, she’d come 
straight home. And that wouldn’t be worse than 
for her not to come, for she’d be layin’ there fret- 
tin’ herself sick about me. We said we’d do our 
part about her stayin’, and here ’tis up to us. 
She’s got to stay there and get well.” 

Peggy finished her household tasks and dressed 
for church. She started a little early, so as to go 
by the McGinleys and the Bradys, to ask them not 
to mention her father’s getting hurt. The doctor 
had promised to keep it from Mrs. Callahan. So 
the secret seemed safely bottled up. 

After church the Callahans had their frugal 
dinner. For the children, there was bread and 
a stew that Peggy made. Mrs. McGinley sent 
a piece of her Sunday meat-pie to Mr. Calla- 


170 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

han — such a generous piece that there was 
enough for Lois’s dinner, too. 

Then Peggy went to the hospital. It was a cold, 
rainy afternoon and Peggy went straight upstairs 
to the women’s ward. To her surprise she found 
her mother with her hat on, standing talking ear- 
nestly with a nurse. Her face was flushed and 
her eyes had the feverish brightness which 
Peggy’s had seen after long hours of sewing. 

“Why, ma! You don’t look so well as yes- 
terday,” Peggy blurted out in her surprise and 
distress. “I’m afraid you stuck too close to that 
mending I brought you yesterday.” 

“How’s your pa? — oh! I’m all right. I’m well 
enough to come home right now. How’s your 
pa?” 

“Pa? He’s all right. He says tell you he 
couldn’t come this afternoon. Officer Brady 
came in to visit ” 

“Why, why ! your pa — — ” Mrs. Callahan in- 
terrupted. 

Peggy’s voice flowed on, cheerfully. “And he 
sat down in the rocking chair like he’d come for 
a visiting visit.” 

“Your pa ” Mrs. Callahan began again; 

then she checked herself and said earnestly, 
“Peggy, did your pa say for you to tell me that?” 

“Yessum. Sure!” said Peggy. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 171 

Mrs. Callahan hesitated a minute. Then she 
said adjuringly, “Peggy, if your pa wanted me — 
if there was need of me day or night — you’d let 
me know, wouldn’t you?” 

“Sure, ma,” said Peggy, looking surprised. 
Then in blind wisdom she added the right words, 
“I wouldn’t worry you about home things, ma, but 
of course I’d tell you if we really needed you. 
Pa said this morning what a blessing ’tis you are 
getting so well and strong, you’ll be ready for 
anything.” 

“That’s so; that’s so. I s’pose I am doin’ you 
good by stayin’ here. And you are sure your pa 
ain’t needin’ me, ” Mrs. Callahan said. 

“ ’Course not,” said Peggy. She answered the 
look on her mother’s face. “He’s getting on fine. 
What are you worrying about, ma?” she asked 
with sudden wonder if somehow her mother had 
obtained disturbing news of the night’s events. 
But a second thought convinced her that was im- 
possible. The only people who knew had prom- 
ised not to tell and they would certainly keep their 
promise. “Have you had any company to-day, 
ma?” she asked. 

“Not a soul,” said Mrs. Callahan. 

“What makes you worry so about pa to-day?” 

Mrs. Callahan cast about for a reason. 
“Well,” she said, “you see — well, last night was 


172 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Sat’day night — and — well — things happen, you 
know.” 

“Oh!” said Peggy, with relief. “You were 
afraid the gang would get him. No, ma’m! He 
came home as sober as a judge, and every penny 
of his wages in his pocket. Cross my heart, he 
did.” 

Mrs. Callahan looked relieved, but baffled. 
“What — what time did he get home?” she asked. 

“I was just going to tell you,” said Peggy. 
“He came home late. I was beginning to worry 
— 'cause his supper was getting cold, you know. 
He went way out Northwest for some extry 
money for shoeing a lady's horse at lunch 
hour. He’d promised us money for the movies, 
but being as 'twas too late when he came home 
we’re all going next week to a ten-cent show. 
I hope I can leave lessons be and go, too. Won’t 
that be grand ?” 

“Grand,” agreed her mother, reassured by 
Peggy’s genuine enthusiasm. 

“Ma,” said Peggy, after a pause, “how did you 
manage about things when you — you forgot to 
order groceries ? I ain’t used to things, and when 
there ain’t no — when they don’t come Sat’day 
nights — I don’t just know how to get on.” 

“Peggy,” said Mrs. Callahan, earnestly, “did 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 173 

your pa bring home his wages? Answer me hon- 
est, my girl.” 

Peggy was glad of a question in response to 
which she could meet her mother’s eyes with real 
frankness. “Sure he did, ma,” she replied. 
“Cross my heart, he did. There ’tis now in the 
housekeeping mug on the mantelpiece, — three 
paper notes, a fifty-cent piece, three quarters, two 
dimes and a nickel. No, he paid Jed twenty-five 
cents and Elmore sixteen cents and Lois a nickel, 
that they lent me to pay for groceries before pa 
came — but the rest is all there.” 

The circumstantial account was convincing. 
Mrs. Callahan breathed a sigh of relief. She sat 
down and Peggy pulled a chair close to her side. 

“But there ain’t much to eat in the house to- 
day,” Peggy went on. “I — I didn’t get the gro- 
ceries in last night.” 

“After my tellin’ you what to do! Peggy, 
ain’t you ashamed?” reproved her mother. 
“With your pa bringin’ home the money and him 
needin’ good victuals — men always do — and you 
so careless not to ’tend to things. And promisin’ 
to go by the grocer’s and order for Sunday ! I’m 
ashamed of you, Peggy.” 

“Yes, ma. But the car was late. And pa was 
behind time. And I’m not so used to housekeep- 


174 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

in g. And — and ” In spite of herself, tears 

rolled down Peggy’s cheeks. 

In a flash her mother relented. “You poor 
child! You poor little thing! You’re doin’ good 
as you can. I ought to be at home, ’tendin’ to 
things. I’m cornin’ right now.” 

Peggy’s hands held her fast. “No, ma’m, you 
ain’t,” she said. “We want you should stay here, 
pa and all of us. It was his last word to me, 
about how good it’s going to be to have you come 
home well. And you wouldn’t spoil it all?” 

Mrs. Callahan’s look of excited resolution 
faded into one of affectionate anxiety. “I feel 
like I ought to be at home,” she said, “and help 
you.” 

“I want you to help me now, ma,” said Peggy. 
“I want you to tell me about things.” 

“What things?” asked her mother. 

“About eatings. For breakfast we had oat- 
meal and bread and molasses. And pa and Lois 
had eggs with bacon in it. I made a omelet, like 
Mrs. Hicks showed me, — only I put in more flour 
to make the eggs go farther.” Her mother nod- 
ded approval. “And for dinner there was bread, 
and I made a stew. And Mrs. McGinley’s meat- 
pie was for pa and Lois. And for supper there’s 
bread and oatmeal. I can make some meal 
mush.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 175 

"Is there plenty bread ?” asked Mrs. Callahan. 

“Yessum. We had it cold, thick sliced, for 
breakfast and dinner. There’s a lot for supper.” 

“That’s good,” said her mother. “You can 
make cinnamon toast. Your pa’ll relish that. 
He always does. You know how to make it. 
You’ve seen me make it dozens of times, for 
Sunday night supper.” 

“Yessum. But I didn’t take notice,” Peggy 
answered. “I don’t know how you made it. I 
just know it was good.” 

So Mrs. Callahan gave the directions. An 
egg was to be beaten and added to a tablespoon- 
ful of milk. The sliced bread was to be dipped 
in that and fried, then sprinkled with powdered 
cinnamon and sugar. 

Peggy smacked her lips at memory of the 
toothsome dish which they always enjoyed. “It’s 
lots of help for you to tell me things, ma,” she 
said wistfully. “I wish I could ask you about — 
everything.” 

What a help it would be to consult her mother 
about her father! But of course he was right. 
It wouldn’t do to worry her and retard her re- 
covery by telling her of his accident. 

As Peggy was starting home, a nurse came in. 
“Well, Mrs. Callahan, I hope your daughter 
brought good news. Is your husband ” 


176 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Mrs. Callahan, who had been making unnoticed 
signs, now interrupted. “Miss Middleton, I’ve 
got something important to ask you. Please let 
me whisper to you.” 

The nurse, surprised at her earnest haste, 
stopped and listened to several whispered sen- 
tences; then she nodded and smiled. “Very 
well,” she said. She followed Peggy to the door. 
“How is your father?” she asked. 

“We’re all very well, thank you,” said Peggy. 

“If your father wasn’t well, if there was any- 
thing the matter at home, you’d better tell me, 
you know. I know what’s best to tell your 
mother.” 

“Yes, ma’m. Sure, ma’m. Pa says he’s feel- 
ing fine.” Peggy was smiling, but uncommuni- 
cative. 

The nurse returned to Mrs. Callahan. “I 
couldn’t find out anything, Mrs. Callahan. She 
wouldn’t tell me. Why didn’t you ask her 
straight out ?” 

“Oh !” said Mrs. Callahan, wearily, “I tried to 
find out. But I didn’t. They’re tryin’ to keep 
it from me, for fear of worryin’ me. And if 
they feel better for me not to let on I know, I’ve 
got to keep still. It ain’t anything terrible bad, 
or I’d have got it out of Peggy. Oh, dear !” And 
she sighed. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 177 

Peggy* happily unaware of her mother's state 
of mind, was hurrying home. She prepared the 
cinnamon toast, with great care and success, and 
it was greedily enjoyed. There was peace and 
good-humor in the family until Peggy suggested 
that it was bedtime. The younger children were 
tired and drowsy from an outdoors day, but they 
waked up and rebelled as soon as she proposed 
going to bed. 

“Ma always tells us to go early," she reminded 
them. 

“But she don’t make us do it," Elmore re- 
minded her. 

“But go early to-night," Peggy urged. “I was 
up so terrible late last night. And I want a 
chance to rest before getting-up time. I’m so 
sleepy !’’ She yawned. “Do let’s go to bed." 

“Shut up, Peggy! You’re trying to be so 
bossy," said Jed, hardly lifting his eyes from his 
book. 

“You kids do what Peggy says," their father 
called sternly from the bed. “Ain’t you ’shamed 
not to ? — and her cookin’ and cleanin’ and takin’ 
your ma’s place so good and smart. You go 
straight to bed." 

Jed and Elmore shuffled upstairs to their bed- 
room, but Susie whined a protest. “We never 
minded ma in no big hurry." 


178 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

'Well, you’ve got to mind in a hurry now,” 
was her father’s decisive rejoinder. “You’ve got 
to mind Peggy and me, as long as we’re runnin’ 
this shanty. And I don’t call it mindin’ to hang 
around and talk back.” 

“If we waited and kept on begging, real often 
ma changed her mind and let us stay up,” ex- 
plained Susie, who was undressing slowly. 

“That ain’t mindin’/’ said her father. “You 
hurry and get in bed.” 


CHAPTER XV 


M R. C ALE AH AN refused to take any 
steps to get indemnity from the street 
railway. 

He was not budged an inch by the arguments 
of a plausible insurance lawyer who held out al- 
luring prospects of securing a large indemnity 
and deducting a very moderate commission — 
“only fifty per cent.” 

“No,” said Mr. Callahan. “No,” he reiterated 
grimly. “The first day Pm able, I’ll take my 
pay out of Williams’s skin. There ain’t no sense 
in gettin’ him reported to the comp’ny, to lose his 
job. December ain’t a time for a family man to 
be out of work — provisions high as they are.” 

His industrial insurance, or “sick benefit,” was 
obtained promptly and without any mention of 
the motorman’s recklessness. It required skillful 
contriving to make this little weekly income pro- 
vide food and rent. 

Peggy and her father planned the place of each 
dime as carefully as if it were part of a Chi- 
nese puzzle. It was a great triumph when bread, 

179 


180 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


potatoes, rice, molasses, stew meat, coffee, and 
other necessaries were bought and there was a 
surplus dime or quarter. Such a triumph was 
celebrated by spending the remaining coin for 
chewing gum or candy or icecream cones. 

During these home-staying days, Mr. Callahan 
did more than plan the outgo of their small in- 
come. He managed his children with unexpected 
skill and judgment, dealing with them as firmly as 
with the skittish colts he handled. Instead of 
running wild during their mother’s absence as 
the neighbors had foretold, the young Callahans 
were more straitly controlled than they had ever 
been. They were, indeed, more obedient to their 
father than they had been to their devoted, long- 
suffering mother. 

Jed, with the shrewdness of childhood, stated 
the reason. “There ain’t any 'maybe so’ in pa’s 
'no,’ ” he said. Not only was it impossible to 
twist the “no” into “yes,” but delay or teasing was 
apt to bring punishment. 

In the afternoons Jed and Elmore could and 
did escape their father’s notice. Both the boys 
sold papers after school, and they collected the 
family fuel, — cinders from dump heaps, bits of 
coal from the gas house or coal yards, drift-wood 
from the river bank, broken boxes from the gro- 
cer. Supposedly busy with these duties, the boys 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 181 


were out until dusk and sometimes until dark. 

Peggy had an uneasy feeling that their glib ex- 
planations did not truly account for their time, — 
certainly they did not account for the red mud 
that stained their hands and clothes. 

She wondered and worried about the matter, 
but she bore alone the wonder and the worry. 
She did not like to tell her father and have him 
reprimand the boys, unless it was necessary on 
a definite charge with proof. 

She would have been unwilling to burden her 
mother with the matter, even if she had thought 
of it when she was at the hospital. But she did 
not think of it then. She was too harassed, try- 
ing to conceal her father's accident. She often 
got uncomfortably entangled in snarls of contra- 
diction ; and more than once she dropped betray- 
ing words and had to devise a hasty explanation. 

One day she told her mother, with pride, that 
Dr. Malone himself asked for a slice of her 
cinnamon toast on Sunday evening when he 
came in just at supper time; and he said it was 
“A Number One" and he wanted Peggy to tell his 
housekeeper how to make it. And then Peggy 
stopped short, wondering what she should say if 
her mother asked why the doctor came. But for- 
tunately her mother did not ask. She was as 


182 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


pleased as Peggy at the doctor's commendation 
of the cinnamon toast. 

Mrs. Callahan never seemed to notice the be-' 
traying words, not even when they were followed 
by a sudden guilty pause and a startled glance 
to see if she suspected anything. She always 
asked first and most earnestly about her hus- 
band, and he was getting on so well that Peggy 
could reassure her heartily. 

And so the December days were passing. 

Peggy was becoming more and more puzzled 
and worried about Jed and Elmore. Often she 
intercepted significant glances and gestures and 
scraps of conversation, but day after day passed 
without giving a clue to their meaning. As usu- 
al, the boys were eager to make every possible 
cent, but their nickels were no longer spent at 
the movies. Instead of going there, they came 
and went with mysterious packages. 

Peggy's suspicions were made more definite by 
Officer Brady whom she met on her way from 
school one afternoon. 

“What are them boys up to now?" he asked. 
“Where are they going every day? And what 
for?" 

“I don't know," said Peggy. “I thought maybe 
they were playing Cops and Robbers in George- 
town." 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 183 

“They ain’t,” said the policeman. “And they 
need watching. It happened they got off from 
that house-burning business. I hope” — he 
spoke with the emphasis of doubt — “I hope that 
ain’t making them bold in worse mischief. I see 
them ’most every day, whispering together, and 
then they sneak off, hiding things.” 

Peggy looked disturbed. “Who ?” she asked. 

“Oh! your twins and the McGinley boy and 
Tim Rogan and some more. There’s a gang of 
them, and a gang of boys needs looking after.” 

“That they do, sir,” Peggy sighed. 

She began to question Jed about the matter as 
soon as he came into the kitchen where she was 
busy cooking supper. 

“None of your business,” he said at first. 

When she threatened to appeal to their father, 
he became more talkative, — and, she felt sure, 
more secretive. 

He and Elmore might have been whispering 
with the other boys. Were they to yell every- 
thing they had to say, so that Officer Brady could 
hear it? What if they were carrying about 
things that he didn’t see? Did they have to show 
him all their papers and coal and cinders and 
kindling wood? Hadn’t they been keeping the 
fuel boxes full? What was she fussing about? 
And what was there to worry father with? 


184 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

What was there for her to tell him anyway? 

Jed sauntered into the other room and. Peggy, 
dropping the subject, finished cooking supper 
and then settled down to her studies. 

The next afternoon she saw Elmore come up 
the path with a little bundle which he stowed 
away under the porch steps. 

When he went to get kindling, Peggy — feel- 
ing very guilty and underhanded — pulled out the 
package and examined its contents. It was — a 
bottle of milk! Surely nothing could be more 
harmless — or more mysterious. 

Elmore came back, dumped the kindling in the 
box, and ran out — pausing at the porch to get 
his milk bottle — and returned half an hour later 
in high glee. 

What was the meaning of it? Peggy, thor- 
oughly puzzled, told Anne, who suggested all 
sorts of things. Perhaps there was an escaped 
criminal whom the boys were harboring and 
feeding. Perhaps they had fastened up one of 
their comrades for a prank. Perhaps they had 
formed a club, or secret society, and were having 
“spreads.” They were carrying not only milk, 
but other food. Peggy had seen them cram- 
ming bread in their pockets and had complained, 
thinking merely they were making wasteful pro- 
vision for ravenous appetites. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 185 

The other Holly Hill boys were making inroads 
on family larders. Peggy learned this one af- 
ternoon when she ran to the McGinley's, carry- 
ing some apples in the dish that her neighbor had 
brought over full of stew. It wasn't manners, 
Peggy's mother had told her, to return empty a 
dish that came to the house full. 

Mrs. McGinley was grumbling because there 
wasn't meat left for supper. She had put away 
a hunk of meat and Mike had taken it. It wasn't 
natural for even a growing boy to have an ap- 
petite like his. He had just walked off with 
'most a loaf of bread in his hand, — and he would 
come back and eat supper, as if he hadn't had a 
mouthful. 

Peggy went home, more puzzled than ever. 
What were those boys doing with all that food ? 
Not eating it, she was sure. Ought she to talk 
the matter over with her father? She hated to 
worry him and have the boys call her telltale. So 
she resolved to wait a while and try to find out 
for herself. 

If only she could depend on what the boys said ! 
If only they would tell the truth! Peggy had 
often laughed at Anne Lewis's disapproval of 
“white lies" and now she was beginning to see 
truth as a fair and desirable thing. 

She surprised Anne the next day by saying, 


186 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


“I wish everybody would tell the truth. It would 
save a lot of trouble.” Then she added quite vin- 
dictively, “I am never going to tell a story again, 
when I don’t have to.” 

But what about school work these days and 
Peggy’s prospects for the longed-for scholarship 
prize ? 

For a while after her father’s accident, Peggy 
found life very hard. The short days were over- 
filled with many various duties that she did not 
know how to compound. Sometimes house tasks 
would be neglected, sometimes school work would 
be slighted, and there were blue days when every- 
thing seemed to go wrong and Peggy had a heart- 
sinking certainty that Albert Fischer would win 
the prize. 

Milly Blake, too, was pressing forward. Milly 
was clever, but she had always lacked application. 
Now her father had promised her a gold locket 
and chain if she won the scholarship prize. She 
announced, with a toss of her flaxen curls, that 
she was surely going to get it; she was going to 
study and study and do nothing but study. 

How many things besides study poor Peggy, 
for her part, had to do ! Crowding household du- 
ties demanded so much time ! And it seemed as 
if a home emergency presented itself whenever 
she had an especially difficult lesson. It was hard. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 187 

Sometimes it was almost disheartening. Finn 
would play in the water and catch cold and have 
to be dosed and amused ; or Lois’s legs would ache 
so that Peggy must rub them till the poor child 
fell asleep; or little Dan would be fretful with 
his teeth and keep Peggy awake at night, and 
then she would oversleep and not have time in 
the morning to study a hard lesson. 

But she was doing her best. And some days 
things went well and she was hopeful, even con- 
fident. 

Her father, with whom she talked over her 
work and her ambition, became as interested and 
eager as she was. He helped her all he could, 
during those days he lay abed. He tended Dan- 
ny-boy by the hour while she studied. He 
worked at her arithmetic lessons, while she was 
busy over the cook stove or the wash tub, and 
laboriously mastered and explained the prob- 
lems. He helped the children and made them 
help themselves, so as to spare Peggy. Susie 
and even Finn had to struggle with their own 
strings and buttons. Jed and Elmore were re- 
quired to help about housework, as well as to 
run errands and do chores. It was only Lois of 
whom nothing was required and whose whims, 
which her father used to laugh at, were now 
indulged. 


188 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“You don’t know how hard it is to lay abed,” 
he said apologetically to the others, when Lois 
was cross. 

The kind neighbors ran in and out to minister 
to Mr. Callahan’s needs and to give Peggy a help- 
ing hand. 

Often after school Anne Lewis came by to help 
Peggy over hard places in English, her most dis- 
liked study. 

Anne could not understand this distaste. 

“Why, Peggy dear, English is so easy and 
beautiful ! It’s something we use every day,” she 
exclaimed one day, when Peggy opened her book 
with a sigh. 

“I don’t,” said Peggy. “It’s just a book study. 
And it’s awful hard and dry.” So it was to her. 
And she went on saying, “I done got it,” while 
she filled in blanks that said, “I have learned my 
lesson.” 

“I reckon I don’t know how to tell you,” Anne 
said at last, despairing of her own power to make 
things intelligible to Peggy. “Why don’t you ask 
your teacher to explain it?” 

“I do,” said Peggy. “And she explains. And 
then I don’t understand as much as I thought I 
did. And then she explains some more. And 
then I don’t understand anything. So I just learn 
it and say it by heart, and don’t bother about un- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 189 

derstanding it. I like things, like arithmetic, 
you can put down in figures and add and sub- 
tract and multiply and there's a right answer to 
get." She looked dolefully at the page which 
commanded her to imagine she was a butterfly 
and write her experiences. 

Anne shuddered. “I hate arithmetic," she said 
vehemently. “I’d just as soon — as soon eat saw- 
dust as study it. Now this lesson is so easy it's 
like play. Shut your eyes, Peggy, and think. 
You've seen butterflies. What did they do?" 
In Anne's eyes were shining thoughts of sunny 
wind-swept meadows purple and yellow with 
wild bergamot and goldenrod, over which hosts of 
butterflies flitted and basked. “Tell about but- 
terflies you've seen, Peggy," Anne insisted. 

“I don't know — oh ! one flew in our cook room 
onct," Peggy said, challenging her reluctant 
memory. “It flittered in the butter and got aw- 
ful messed up." 

“Ugh!" Anne exclaimed. Then she said piti- 
fully, “Poor thing! Tell about its hard, sad 
time — like the Ugly Duckling, you know — and 
let it end happy." 

Peggy shook her head. “Can't," she said 
briefly. “It flopped on the floor and the cat et 
it." 

There was an awful pause. Anne looked at 


190 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Peggy with puzzled despair, then rallied and said 
firmly, “Peggy, that will not do. Think ! Think 
hard ! Why, we saw little yellow butterflies that 
day at Great Falls. Play you’re one of them, 
and tell about what you saw.” 

“ ’Bout seeing us? And what we had to eat?” 
asked Peggy, her pencil poised in air. 

“Ye-es,” submitted Anne. 

“Oh, I can do that,” Peggy said confidently. 
“I can ’magine what I saw. I can say it — I — 
flew by and saw Susie reach for a nut and stump 
her toe and ” Peggy began to scribble dili- 

gently. 

“Pll go in to see Lois and hear about the Wack- 
ersons while you are writing that,” said Anne. 

“All right,” Peggy agreed. “Ain’t she the 
funny kid? Making all that up about the Wack- 
ersons !” 

Anne thought it was stranger not to make 
things up. She listened pleasantly to Lois’s re- 
port of the latest Wackerson happenings. 

“I like to tell you about ’em,” Lois said. 
“You — you look like you are ’quainted with 
’em. Now, Anne, you tell about them old big 
giants.” 

Anne wandered off into a story that delighted 
the eager listener and made her late getting home. 

“Where were you this afternoon, Anne?” Miss 



MP 




‘ 
































































PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 191 

Drayton asked at dinner. “I waited for you to 
go down town shopping.” 

Anne explained that she had stopped to see 
Lois Callahan who was still in bed. Mrs. Calla- 
han was in the hospital and now Mr. Callahan 
was at home with a hurt foot. 

“Don’t they need help?” asked Mr. Patterson. 

“I have sent them food several times,” said 
Miss Drayton, “and I had Miss Hartman of the 
Associated Charities go to see them. Mr. Cal- 
lahan told her he didn’t want anything from the 
Charity office. I wonder if he was civil to her? 
People like that, you know ! Well, some- 

thing ought to be done for those children. We 
are going to take the case up at our Aid Society 
to-morrow.” 

Meanwhile, in the cottage on Holly Hill, Anne 
Lewis was under discussion and the fact that she 
was an adopted orphan was received in a way 
which amazed Peggy. 

Jed started the conversation that brought un- 
expected results. Anne was going down the 
path when he came in with an air of just starting 
out again. 

“Is it ’cause Anne Lewis is so nice that she has 
been more homed than other folks?” he asked, 
looking after her. 

“What do you mean?” asked Peggy . 


192 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“Well, when we first knew her she was with 
Miss Dorcas Read in the Fairview Flats — and 
she said she had a home before that — and now 
she is with Pat Patterson at his home,” Jed an- 
swered. 

“Oh!” said Peggy. “She’s an orphant, don’t 
you know? Like Orphant Annie in the poetry, 
only different. And she got lost and came to 
live with Miss Read that’s her cousin. That’s 
when she lent her Honey-Sweet doll to Lois and 
the dog tore it. And then Miss Drayton found 
her, and took her back to live with her and Pat 
and Mr. Patterson.” 

“How did they get her first? And how did 
they lose her?” Jed wanted to know. 

But Peggy had told all that she knew. “When 
folks don’t have homes, somebody adopts ’em,” 
she said. “Ain’t you heard ma tell about the 
lady that Mrs. Peckinbaugh knows? One day 
her doorbell rang and when she went to the door, 
there wasn’t anybody there, — just a basket with 
a little baby in it and a card pinned on, saying, 
‘Please adopt me.’ And the lady took her in and 
took care of her always.” 

“That’s it!” said Jed, clapping his hands. 
“Glory! That’s it! If they ain’t got homes 
somebody dopps ’em. Bully! Elmore! Elmore! 
Come here quick. I’ve got something to tell you.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 193 

He was out of the house in a flash, followed 
by Elmore. After two or three minutes , excited 
consultation, they ran down the patth, calling 
Mike McGinley. 

“What foolishness are the boys up to now?” 
wondered Peggy, looking after them with a wor- 
ried frown. 


CHAPTER XVI 


HE next morning Miss Drayton called 



up the local office of the Charity Asso- 


ciation to ask if it had any recent infor- 
mation about the Callahans. 

Miss Hartman was out, but the office assistant 
who answered the telephone was sure, so she in- 
formed Miss Drayton, that the family had not 
applied for aid recently. The inference — the 
very strong inference — was that they were not 
in need. “Once they get the Associated Char- 
ities habit, they come to us and depend on us for 
everything/’ said the young woman, cynically. 

She did not know that the wise, tactful lady 
in charge was keeping quiet watch over the Calla- 
hans. Miss Hartman welcomed their growing 
spirit of independence and gladly left the family 
to work out its own salvation, unhindered by 
help. For she realized that some privations were 
better than continued dependence on the Chari- 
ties. 

The Callahans were not suffering nor in real 
need. They struggled along, living on Mr. Cal- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 195 

lahan's insurance money, and were sometimes 
comfortable and happy, and sometimes uncom- 
fortable — but generally happy still. 

Miss Drayton went out of her way to the Aid 
meeting, in order to carry the Callahans a basket 
of nourishing food and to get first-hand infor- 
mation about their condition. Mr. Callahan re- 
ceived her with unfriendly gruffness. He al- 
ways resented the visitors who came “poking 
in to ask questions.” But Lois, who was lying 
in her bed beside the window, was friendly and 
smiling. 

The small home, especially Lois's room, looked 
very forlorn to Miss Drayton. “It's the dingiest 
little place you ever saw," she explained at the 
Ladies' Aid Society. “Just a cuddy hole opening 
out of the kitchen — which is dining-room too, for 
that matter — and the other downstairs room — 
which is bedroom and sitting-room too. Think 
of being sick and staying all day long in a little 
room like that, with plastering cracked and fall- 
ing! Two beds, two chairs, and a rickety table 
are all the furnishing of the room. And that 
poor child has been there flat on her back for 
weeks, and has to be there for weeks to come. 
I came by Dr. Malone's office to ask him about 
the case. Her heart is infected from a tonsil 
trouble. He says she’s getting on as well as 


196 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

possible, as well as if she were in a hospital. 
And she says the neighbors listen for her bell 
and come in whenever she needs them. She had 
her face turned to the wall and was talking to 
herself — poor child ! — when I went into her room. 
Ill for weeks — in that room !” 

“Couldn’t we get the doctor to send her to the 
hospital?” asked Miss Lowry, the thin one with 
the mottled red and purple face. 

“I asked him. He said not,” answered Miss 
Drayton. “He said there are so many charity 
cases and when there isn’t real need and they 
can get on at home, he believes in letting them 
alone.” 

“That sounds so heartless! I never heard of 
anything so pathetic as that child. We must 
send her things to eat and playthings. Think of 
her being so lonesome that she lies there talking 
to herself!” The speaker was the Miss Lowry 
with the abundant fair hair and the broad pink 
face and the irritating fixed smile. 

“I can’t get it off my mind,” sighed Miss Dray- 
ton. “Think of having to lie there all day, look- 
ing at those bare, splotched walls. I thought how 
dreadful it was, when I walked in and saw her 
lying there, with her face to the wall. If you 
could have seen it !” 

“Oh, you described it wonderfully, dear — 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 197 

wonderfully. You have quite a remarkable tal- 
ent for description,” said the fat Miss Lowry. 

“It was most affecting,” said the thin Miss 
Lowry. 

Mrs. Lawson, formal and efficient, made now 
her first contribution to the conversation. As 
usual, she had withheld comment until she had 
formulated a plan of action. 

“I suggest that we make a Christmas contribu- 
tion to this pathetic case,” she said in her precise 
voice. “The mother being in the hospital, and 
the housekeeping devolving on the eldest daugh- 
ter — quite a young girl, I understand, Miss 
Drayton?” 

Miss Drayton agreed. 

Mrs. Lawson went on: “I suggest that we 
have the house thoroughly cleaned, the room of 
the ill child papered, that we furnish it with white 
iron beds, a new table, some krex or rag rugs, 
muslin curtains — making the room attractive 
while appropriate to their circumstances — and 
so add sunshine and happiness to this little shut- 
in life,” she concluded. 

There was a chorus of approval and it was de- 
cided to carry out the plan so as to make a “beau- 
tiful surprise” for Lois. 

Mr. Callahan did not look at all grateful when 
the enthusiastic kind ladies climbed the hill to 


198 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

the little gabled cottage to tell him what they in- 
tended to do. In fact, he consented to the plan 
only because it was presented to him as some- 
thing that would please Lois. 

The ladies enlisted Mrs. Rogan’s aid. She 
readily agreed to take Lois for a visit the next 
day, while the room was being renovated. 

“I do it often enough for her not to suspicion 
nothin’,” said the good woman. “But, ladies, she 
ain’t no lonesome child. That she ain’t. She’s 
gladder to go home every time than she is to 
come. You ought to hear her talk ’bout them 
Wackersons — them make-believe folks she plays 
with. They’re just as real to her as I am.” 

“It’s a queer thing for a child to do. Is she — 
all right?” inquired Mrs. Lawson. 

“Bright as a button,” said Mrs. Rogan. 

“Nonsense, Louise!” said Miss Drayton. 
“Children often have such fancies — these play- 
mates that fade away as they grow older. And 
the children become normal matter-of-fact men 
and women. Why, Cousin James Drayton had a 
little imaginary friend, Huckley, that he talked 
about all the time when he was a little fellow. 
Now, you know, James is a very efficient ste- 
nographer in a railroad office, with no more im- 
agination in him than in his job.” 

“Well, it will be a blessing to give the child 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 199 

something pleasanter — and real,” said Mrs. 
Lawson. 

They went complacently ahead with their plan. 
Lois, consenting rather than rejoicing, was car- 
ried to Mrs. Rogan’s. Mr. Callahan turned his 
face to the wall and grimly endured having the 
place put through a course of floor scrubbing, 
wall cleaning, and window washing. 

“It will save Peggy some work,” he reflected, 
and pressed his lips together when he longed to 
order the charwoman out of the house. 

Meanwhile, paper hangers were at work in 
Lois’s room and it came from under their hands 
a bower of roses; buds and blossoms dotted the 
silvery stripes and there were festoons of roses 
on the border at the top. The ladies trotted back 
and forth and put up white muslin curtains and 
tied them back with pink ribbons. Two white iron 
beds were brought in — a big one for Peggy and 
Susie, and a little one at the window for Lois — 
and new white spreads were put on both. A 
pink-and-tan rag rug was laid on the floor be- 
tween the beds. The room was undeniably 
pretty and dainty, and the ladies viewed it with 
great satisfaction. 

“Anne will be delighted with it,” said Miss 
Drayton. “I told her to come by with Peggy 
from, school. She is so interested in this child. 


200 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


I am sure that she will enjoy it as much as Lois.” 

But Anne did not go into the expected ecsta- 
sies. “Yes, Aunt Sarah; yes, indeed, Mrs. Law- 
son; it’s pretty. IPs very pretty. Oh, yes, Aunt 
Sarah ! I like it. IPs lovely. Like summer and 
sunshine. But I don’t know — Well, maybe — 
I do hope Lois will like it.” 

Peggy and Susie and Finn stared around with 
open-mouthed admiration. 

Peggy gave the enthusiasm vainly expected 
from Anne. “IPs grand!” she exclaimed. “Oh, 
it’s perfectly grand ! Sure, Lois will like it.” 

There was a cloud on Anne’s brow and it did 
not lift when Lois was brought home in Mrs. 
Rogan’s kind, capable arms. Miss Drayton, Mrs. 
Lawson, and the Misses Lowry stood in the kitch- 
en, peeping from behind the half-opened door. 

“Sh, sh !” they said to each other, beaming 
with complacent expectation of Lois’s delighted 
surprise. 

Mrs. Rogan unwrapped the shawl and laid the 
child gently on the new white bed and drew the 
new white cover over her. 

“There, dearie !” she said. 

Lois looked around her — and then looked 
again. There was a long minute of silence. 

“This — this ain’t my room,” Lois said blankly. 

“The nice ladies fixed it up to-day. That’s 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 201 


why they sent you visiting. Ain’t it grand ?” said 
P e &gy- “Look at the walls. All roses. And the 
curtains. That’s sure-enough silk ribbon on 
them. And the rug to cover the floor ’twixt the 
beds. Ain’t it perfectly grand?” 

Lois stared with dismay instead of joy. “My 
room’s gone,” she quavered. “I — I don’t know 
this here place.” 

“Sure you don’t,” agreed Peggy. “It’s so 
grand it looks like Anne’s room. Don’t it, 
Anne?” 

Anne stood silent, her eyes fixed on Lois and 
her face reflecting Lois’s changing emotions — 
surprise, dismay, doubt, and then distress, deep- 
ening distress. 

Lois burst into tears. “My — my Wackersons !” 
she wailed. 

Mrs. Lawson, perplexed and kindly, came into 
the room. The other ladies trailed after' her. 
“We expected you would like this pretty room, 
dear,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s pretty?” 

Lois, shaken with sobs, caught her breath and 
wailed piercingly. “I hate it.” 

“Haw, haw!” Mr. Callahan roared with de- 
light at the discomfiture of the ladies. Then 
Lois’s distress sobered him and he said something 
in a fierce undertone. 

“I want my Wackersons,” Lois was crying. 


202 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


“We want our home. Oh, oh ! Everything’s gone.” 

The ladies, mystified and helpless, looked at 
the child and at one another. 

Anne made a quick step toward the bed. But 
Peggy, who was nearer, already had her arms 
around Lois, trying to console her. “Well, well, 
well! Sister’s little girl! There now, there! 
Don’t cry; don’t cry, dear,” she said. 

“I — don’t want all that here,” Lois sobbed. 

“Well, well, dear!” Peggy said soothingly. 
“Don’t cry. You — you’ll get used to it.” 

There was a fresh outburst from Lois. “I 
don’t want to get used to it,” she cried fiercely. 
“I hate it. Take it away. I want my room. I 
want my Wackersons.” She ended with a shriek.. 

Anne understood. But what could be done? 
A sudden thought came to her. 

She caught Lois’s hands in hers. “Lois,” she 
said positively, “listen to me. Listen, Lois. The 
Wackersons are here. They are right here, just 
the same.” 

Lois held her breath on a sob and looked at 
Anne. 

There was certainty and persuasion in Anne’s 
voice. “The Wackersons are here,” she said. 
“These roses have grown up to make a pretty 
place for them to live in. They are behind these 
roses, like your house is back of the red rose bush 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 203 

in summer time. The Wackersons are there, just 
the same. And all the fairies and giants. I tell 
you they are.” 

Lois began to sob again, but less violently 
than before. “They can’t get out,” she said. 

“Of course they can,” said Anne. “See here.” 

She jerked out a hat-pin and made great 
jagged cuts and scratches up and down and 
across the dainty new paper beside Lois’s bed. 
The startled, protesting “Oh!” and “Oh, oh!” of 
Miss Drayton and Mrs. Lawson and the Misses 
Lowry were unheeded, unheard. 

“See here,” said Anne. “This is where they’ll 
come out. There are the steps. There is the 
house. And what a good time they’ll have com- 
ing to see you in this pretty room !” 

Lois looked slowly around and a little smile 
curled her trembling lips upward. “It is pretty,” 
she said faintly. 

“Can’t you thank the nice ladies?” Peggy en- 
treated. 

With downcast eyes, Lois mumbled something 
which the ladies accepted as thanks. Quiet and 
crestfallen, they left the house and picked their 
way over the stones among the mudholes. 

Mrs. Lawson was the first to speak. “What 
a queer child!” she said. 


204 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“Queer and horrid,” agreed the fat Miss 
Lowry. 

“Ungrateful little wretch !” said the thin Miss 
Lowry. 

“Oh!” protested Anne, overtaking them after 
lingering a minute with Lois. “She didn’t mean 
it that way.” 

“How did you happen to understand her, 
Anne?” Miss Drayton wanted to know. “I was 
sure you would think it was pretty.” 

“Oh, yes! I did when I looked through my 
own eyes,” Anne explained vaguely. “But I had 
to see it like Lois. She is the one that has to 
live there — with the Wackersons.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


A WEEK later came Christmas day. It 
was the first Christmas of the Great 
War that was to shadow the world with 
its horror of death and desolation and hate. But 
the immensity and the bitterness of it had not 
yet rooted themselves in the minds and the hearts 
of people. Even in the trenches, that holiday 
season, enemy soldiers were exchanging food and 
tobacco, greetings and kindliness. And in Wash- 
ington City, Albert Fischer and the little Calla- 
hans and McGinleys had contributed their pen- 
nies to the Christmas ship sent to orphans over- 
seas. And the older Fischers and Callahans gos- 
siped amiably together about soldier brothers and 
cousins, and rejoiced that they were Americans 
and that America was a Christmas land of peace 
and goodwill. 

It was Washington's first “white Christmas" 
for several years. On the afternoon of the twen- 
ty-fourth of December, the Holly Hill children 
went gayly through the storm to see the com- 
munity Christmas tree on the east front of the 

205 


206 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


Capitol. The snow underfoot and in the air 
made more beautiful the tableaux of angels and 
shepherds and wise men, and the tree resplendent 
with myriad jewel-like lights. 

The sturdy, frost-rosy young Callahans 
trudged back to a merry home. The kindly, 
puzzled ladies of the Aid Society had sent food 
for the family, candy and toys and garments for 
all the children. For Lois there was a bewilder- 
ing array of picture books and dolls and teddy 
bears and mechanical toys and paint boxes. She 
looked at and admired them all. Then she lent — 
a Callahan synonym for “gave”- — some of the 
toys to the other children and handed over some 
to Peggy to put on the mantelpiece for ornaments. 
The prettiest doll and a pig that squeaked were 
set aside to be sent to her mother. Then Lois 
amused herself as usual with the Wackersons 
who were now very much pleased with their new 
quarters. 

Mr. Patterson had been so interested in what 
Miss Drayton told about the family — with Anne’s 
interpolations lending color and incident to the 
narrative — that he handed Anne a ten-dollar 
note for her friend, Mr. Callahan. 

Miss Drayton approved, in theory for herself 
and in practice for other people, of giving aid to 
the poor through organized charity. She looked 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 207 

with disfavor on this gift and telephoned to Miss 
Hartman about it, asking her to see that the 
money was judiciously spent. Miss Hartman 
sighed as she hung up the receiver. There were 
many burdens on her frail shoulders during the 
holidays, but the next day she sandwiched a 
friendly visit to the Callahans between two duty 
calls in their neighborhood. 

She managed the affair as tactfully as possible. 
She looked at and admired the children’s toys, 
congratulated Mr. Callahan on his improving 
health and on the kind friends who were helping 
him in his time of need. 

He did not mention the money. So at last she 
said, “And Mr. Patterson was so kind as to 
send you ten dollars ! It must be a relief to have 
your January rent ready. Wouldn’t it be a good 
plan for me to leave it at Mr. Jobson’s office — 
I am going by the door — and then it will be off 
your mind.” 

“ ’Tain’t on my mind yet. Why, rent ain’t due 
for a week,” Mr. Callahan said. 

“It would be nice to start the year paid up,” 
suggested Miss Hartman. “Do,” she urged. 

“No’m. No,” Mr. Callahan answered briefly 
and positively. 

“We’ve done spent that money. This is what I 
got out of it.” Susie exhibited a curly-tailed dog 


208 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


that when wound up opened its mouth and pro- 
duced a wonderful sound by courtesy called “bow 
wow.” 

“Surely you've not spent that money just for 
Christmas knickknacks," said Miss Hartman. 
Oh, why hadn't Mr. Patterson entrusted it to her, 
for proper disbursement! 

“Yessum," said Mr. Callahan. “Yessum," he 
repeated firmly and unrepentantly, meeting her 
troubled eyes. Then, remembering her kindness 
in former hard days, he gave the explanation he 
had been minded to withhold. 

“The gentleman sent it with the word it was 
for a rainy day," he said. “Ain't this a rainy 
day — me laid up and wife in the hospital? If 
ever a day needed cheerin' up, this does. What 
should I be savin' up for ? There ain't no worse 
time to come than this. So I just divided up the 
money, share and share alike, and my kids had 
the fun of spendin' it. And there ain't a selfish 
bone in a body of them. Every one of 'em gave 
part of his money to put with ma's and buy her 
a breastpin — a fine one, like she been wantin' for 
years, and " 

“Pa gave all his part to it," interrupted Susie. 

“Sure!" said Mr. Callahan. 

“Are you talking about ma's breastpin?" asked 
Peggy, coming from the kitchen. “I wish you 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 209 

had seen it, Miss Hartman. It had a gre’t big 
di’mond in the middle, big as my thumb, and all 
’round that were little sparkly blue and green 
things, saffires and — and am’thysts or em’ralds, 
I disremember which the man called them. Pa 
had me pick it out. It was perfectly grand, and 
it cost — five whole dollars!” 

Well, it was too late to protest. “If the 
money’s spent ” Miss Hartman began. 

“It’s spent,” said Mr. Callahan, conclusively. 
“And ’tain’t no use worryin’ over it. Och, ma’m ! 
It brought a good ten dollars’ worth of pleasure, 
and what more would you be askin’ at Christmas 
time?” 

“We lent the boys some money to put with their 
part,” said Lois, rising on her elbow to look 
through the open door and share the company. 
“And they got skates. When they come in, the 
room’s full of the good time they have.” 

Miss Hartman smiled and went to talk a while 
with the child. 

According to her principles, the money spend- 
ing was foolish, — but might not happy times be 
as good an investment as dollars in the savings 
bank? She pushed the thought — heretical in her 
position — to the bottom of her mind. But it came 
out again that afternoon when she saw the Calla- 
han boys in a merry group on the canal. The air 


210 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


was full of frosty needle points,, but the boys were 
glowing and happy. Learning to skate was prov- 
ing strenuous fun. They ran over their own feet 
and tripped themselves and fell with resounding 
thwacks on the ice. 

“You, Elmore! you and Jed are going to split 
the ice and break up our skatin’,” called Mike 
McGinley. 

Elmore gave a grunt as he scrambled to a sit- 
ting posture and rubbed his shins. “B’lieve Pll 
stop monkeyin’ with 'em,” he said. “Bet I'll be 
all over blue and black to-morrow. Come on, 
Jed. Let’s stop. Let’s go Bum-a-locking.” 

“Ain’t,” said Jed, doggedly accepting the re- 
sponsibility of his pleasure. “I didn’t choose 
these skates to give up with. I got ’em to learn 
with.” 

He struck out again, tumbled again, and got 
up and tried again. So did Elmore. He had not 
much perseverance of his own, but Jed’s served 
him just as well; for whatever Jed did, Elmore 
sooner or later was sure to do also. 

The crisp cold weather continued several days. 
The tidal basin and the canal were frozen over, 
and wherever there was ice there were throngs 
of merry skaters. Practice gave facility to the 
Callahan twins and they found the sport more 
and more fascinating. While the ice lasted 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 211 


Peggy found it difficult to get wood and coal, 
and each of the twins daily insisted that it was 
the other’s time to do a certain mysterious some- 
thing. And instead of quarreling, as heretofore, 
over the privilege of visiting their mother, each 
one insisted on conferring the favor on the other. 

Mrs. Callahan, we grieve to say, was not get- 
ting on well these days. Her progress had been 
so satisfactory during the first month at the hos- 
pital that Dr. Malone was greatly disappointed 
at the later lack of improvement. 

He shook his head and thrust out his long 
upper lip, as he had a trick of doing when he 
was perplexed. 

“1 don’t understand it,” he confessed to Miss 
Hartman. “It’s her mental attitude. She’s try- 
ing to work with us. But she looks worried. She 
doesn’t know about her husband. I thought pos- 
sibly the boys had let it out. But they declare 
they’ve not. Then what is worrying her?” 

“Probably home affairs in general,” conjec- 
tured Miss Hartman, — “the household left in 
charge of a child like Peggy.” 

“She has no need to worry over Peggy,” said 
Dr. Malone, warmly. “Those little shoulders are 
bearing their burden bravely. She’s a girl in a 
thousand. I’ll tell her mother so.” 

Mrs. Callahan welcomed the praise of her 


212 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


daughter, but the worried look did not pass from 
her face. 

In fact, it was Peggy who caused it. And, all 
unconscious of having caused it, it was Peggy 
who removed it. 

Life was teaching Peggy lessons. She was 
learning, from her worry over Jed and Elmore, 
some of the practical disadvantages of falsehood. 
More and more, she hated the task of deceiving 
her mother; she felt a barrier between them, 
though she did not realize that it was caused by 
the falsehoods which shut her mother from her 
home life. 

In Peggy’s heart, there was growing a new 
feeling about the value and rightness of truth. 
All at once, it blossomed in words. 

One Sunday afternoon, she went, as usual, to 
the hospital to see her mother. In the moment of 
greeting, she met her mother’s eyes following up 
probingly and beseechingly the question, “How’s 
your pa?” 

“Why — why — he — he ” Peggy faltered; 

then she looked her mother straight in the face 
and said, “He’s getting on fine, ma. He had a 
fall from the street car some time ago and hurt 
his foot. But he has got on fine and he can walk 
on crutches now. Doctor says he’ll soon be well.” 

Instead of the distress Peggy expected — in- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 213 

deed, she feared her mother would insist on going 
home at once — Mrs. Callahan accepted the infor- 
mation calmly and with evident relief. 

“So he’s gettin’ on all right. I’m so thankful,” 
she said. “Did it pain him much, Peggy?” 

“It did, the first days,” said Peggy. “But, you 
see, the doctor got there quick and set it. Officer 
Brady found pa where he fell off the street car, 
and he and Mr. McGinley brought him home. 
He gets about all right now on crutches, and 
doctor says he can soon go with just a cane.” 

“Thanks be!” exclaimed Mrs. Callahan. “I 
was feared he wouldn’t never get the use of him- 
self. What did they do to that Williams?” 

“They never did anything to him. Pa wouldn’t 
report him because Why, ma!” she inter- 

rupted herself. “How do you know about Mr. 
Williams? I ain’t named his name.” 

“Ain’t you?” inquired Mrs. Callahan. Then 
she, too, made a clean breast of the truth. “Why, 
you see, the day after it happened — that Sunday 
you came in late — Mrs. Hanscomb’s cousin was 
here and told her your pa got hurt mighty bad. 
Dead drunk he was, she said ” 

“He was as sober as a judge,” interrupted 
Peggy, indignantly. 

“And I was just startin’ home when you came 
in and made all them excuses, and I knew your 


214 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

pa didn’t want me to know'. And if he knew I 
knew about it, he’d think I was worrying and 
I was feared that would worry him. And I 
thought if he was crippled for life, I’d got to have 
my strength to work for him and all of you. So 
I’ve been layin’ here, tryin’ to get well and 
worryin’ about Johnnie.” 

“And I could have told you every time how well 
he was getting on and made you easy in your 
mind,” said Peggy. 

“If just you had!” exclaimed her mother. “I 
got Miss Middleton to try to get you to tell her — 
but she couldn’t. I declare, Peggy, I’ve felt like 
screamin’ when you came in every Sunday with 
new tales, and I trying so hard to pick out the 
truth between them. I’d know from your face 
that your pa wasn’t worse, or you’d look more 
upset. What a comfort it was when you chanced 
to slip out a bit of truth! Now, tell me all about 
it, from the beginnin’.” 

Peggy did — with her mother questioning. And 
when the story was finished there was a deep and 
genuine satisfaction in being together that they 
had not known since the accident. 

“Ain’t a story a funny thing?” said Peggy. 
“You think it’s helping somebody — and it ain’t. 
All the time it’s worrying and hurting them.” 

Her mother agreed heartily. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 215 

Peggy rose to go. “Ma,” she said, “pa can 
make out pretty well on his crutches now. He 
said to-day he’d come to see you, but for letting 
you know about his foot. I’ll tell him you know, 
and he’ll come to-morrow.’’ 

“That’ll be grand, Peggy,” said Mrs. Callahan, 
beaming. “It makes me feel ’most well just to 
think of seein’ Johnnie again. And all that 
worry off my mind !” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


O NE afternoon when Jed had lingered on 
the ice later than usual, Elmore, who had 
come in half an hour earlier, met him, 
troubled and yet triumphant. 

“I told you so,” he began excitedly. “I told 
you time and time again you’d better help fix that 
screen wire. You knew ’twas loose. I kept on 
telling you so. But no; oh, no! You got to go 
skating and got to stay all afternoon. Now you 
done been and went and stayed. And what’s 
happened? Just what I ’spected. That little 
white ki ” 

Jed slapped his hand over Elmore’s mouth, on 
the unfinished word. “Ain’t you got no sense? 
Shut up !” he growled with a look at Peggy. 

“What is it, Jed? Elmore, what is it? What 
mischief are you boys in?” Peggy made the mis- 
take of asking irritatedly. 

“Nothing,” Jed said crossly. “Everything you 
don’t know, you think is mischief we’re in. Let 
us alone. Why ain’t you got some sense, Elmore ? 

What made you bawl out so? You knew ” 

216 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 217 

“Yes, but le’ me tell you.” Elmore drew Jed 
aside and whispered excitedly. 

Peggy looked at them and frowned. During 
all these weeks they had evaded her efforts to 
solve their mystery. To-day they were evidently 
much disturbed. Had they done some unexpect- 
ed damage ? Had they been caught in some mis- 
chief ? Had — oh! what was the matter? Peggy 
wondered and worried. 

She found it so hard to fix her mind on her 
lessons that at last she laid aside her books and 
ran to the grocery to get a box of matches. At 
a street corner she met Officer Brady. 

“Hey, Peggy!” he said. “I was just wishing 
to see you. What foolishness is them boys up 
to? They’ve been racing all over Georgetown — 
your twins at the head of that Holly Hill bunch — 
on the hunt for — guess what? — a kitten, a white 
kitten !” 

“What !” exclaimed Peggy. 

Officer Brady nodded emphatically to confirm 
his words. “One and all, they came to me, ask- 
ing about it,” he said. “ Ts I see a white kitten?’ 
‘Ain’t I see a white kitten?’ And presently Tom 
Croye came out of an alley with it and he called, 
‘Bum-a-lock! Bum-a-lock!’ and mewed — like a 
cat for the world. And them boys come troop- 
ing from everywhere. Not one of ’em would 


218 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

answer a question I asked. And long as I can’t 
prove they’re in mischief and nobody has brought 
complaint ’gainst ’em, I can’t make ’em tell any- 
thing. See? What in thunder are they up to?” 

“I wish I knew,” said Peggy, with a perplexed 
frown. “Couldn’t you make ’em tell you whose 
kitten ’twas?” 

“They said ’twas theirn — a little stray. It 
looked like it knew ’em. I made Tom put it 
down, and it mewed and went to Elmore and 
dumb up his arm and snuggled inside his coat. 
It’s a queer thing about kittens, here lately. It 
looks like they’re as catching as measles. A lot 
of folks have told me about getting ’em, this last 
month or so. The bell rings and they go to the 
door and there, wrapped up nice in a basket, is 
a kitten.” 

“I never heard of such a thing!” exclaimed 
Peggy. 

“Neither more did I,” said Officer Brady. 
“But it’s the truth.” 

“Maybe the boys got hold of one of those bas- 
ket cats and took it for a pet,” said Peggy. “Our 
boys are awful fond of cats and pet things.” 

“Maybe so,” said the policeman, unbelievingly. 
“But you’d better look out for them boys. I 
ain’t forgot about last fall. It was trespassing 
and housebreaking they did, and it might have 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 219 

been house-burning, too, if that tramp fellow 
hadn’t been to blame. Next time they won’t get 
off so easy. They’ve got some secret on hand 
now, and a gang of boys with a secret needs 
watching.” 

Peggy sighed and agreed. Pondering the mat- 
ter, she felt more perplexed and less than before 
inclined to settled down to her lessons. So she 
decided to take this time to go to Mrs. Peckin- 
baugh’s, at Riverheight, to get some promised 
shoes that were conveniently sure to fit one of 
the Callahans. 

So, instead of turning off at Roundabout Lane, 
Peggy followed the trolley track to the west. 
Passing the car barn, she came to a bridge that 
spanned the ravine beyond which lay Riverheight. 
Peggy paused on the bridge to look about her. 

The strip of rugged country was very lovely 
on that late January afternoon. The northern 
hillsides stood out against the gray sky, whit- 
ened by a light snowfall that had already melted 
and left bare the southern slopes. The trees 
showed their winter beauty, — the delicate tracery 
of elms, the rugged and picturesque branching of 
oaks, the white-stemmed uprightness of syca- 
mores, mingled with the dark green of pines and 
cedars. Among the evergreens, there had once 
been holly trees, numerous enough to give their 


220 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


name to Holly Hill east of the ravine, but they 
had long since gone the way of Christmas trees. 

Halfway down the steep hillside, Peggy saw 
a cedar, small and symmetrical and well-berried. 
It was just the thing for a birds’ tree, such as 
Anne Lewis had once described, to keep on a 
window ledge, with gifts of food for the birds. 
Lois would like to have it. Peggy was sure she 
could scramble down there and get it. In fact, 
there was a footway, a mere trail leading along 
the hillside and ending at a pile of pine brush. 

The winter afternoons were short, and twi- 
light was falling when Peggy crossed the bridge 
on her homeward way. She hesitated about go- 
ing down the bluff, but she had set her heart on 
carrying the little cedar to Lois and so she scram- 
bled down to get it. 

Once or twice she thought she heard voices 
and she paused and glanced about her. But she 
saw no one. 

The trail along the bluff was indistinct in the 
twilight, but in Peggy’s efforts to avoid briars 
and bushes, she was unconsciously following the 
beaten track, and she saw, a little distance ahead, 
the pile of pine brush she had noticed at its end. 
But — but Peggy stopped in amazement. In- 

stead of lying, as an hour before, haphazard on 
the bank, the boughs were now piled on one side. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 221 


There was a hole where they had been. And be- 
side the hole there was a rough door made of 
boards, evidently used to cover the opening, be- 
fore piling on it the concealing brushwood. 

P e ggy hesitated, uncertain whether to go for- 
ward or turn back. Just then some one spoke in 
the cave, or cabin, whichever it was. At first, 
Peggy did not recognize the voice. 

‘‘Mountin' Guard, go on.” 

“ 'Tain’t any use,” came the answer. “It's so 
much trouble to move the door and pull over the 
brush. It's so late and dark, can't anybody see 
the hole. I couldn't see it, ten steps off.” 

Why, that was Mike McGinley's voice! And 
the first speaker was Jed. 

Yes, it was Jed. He came now to the door and 
glanced around. Peggy was only a few steps 
away, but the brushwood intervened between her 
and Jed, and her old brown cloak blended, in the 
gathering twilight, into the dull colors of the 
bank. Jed did not see her, and he went back into 
the den, grumbling about how careless the other 
boys were. 

“We've got to leave the door open to see,” said 
Elmore's voice. “ 'Less we light the lantern. 
And it's early for that. And we ain't got much 
oil.” 

Jed grumbled another rebuke. 


222 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


Mike excused their shortcomings. “We’ve 
been chasin’ all over Georgetown, lookin’ for 
Princess Whitecoat. That put us so late. We 
couldn’t help it.” 

“Well,” said Jed, “come on. Let’s have our 
meeting.” Then he called in a singsong tone : 

“Bum-a-lock, Bum-a-lock, mew, mew, mew! 

Bum-a-lock, Bum-a-lock, you, you, you! 

Bum-a-lock, mew!’ 

The voices of the other boys rose in answer : 

“Bum-a-lock, mew ! 

Bum-a-lock, mew! 

Bum-a-lock, mew, mew, mew !” 

Peggy heard a queer medley of sounds. To 
the boys’ voices calling “mew,” were added the 
impatient mews of — was it? could it be? — real 
cats. 

Then came Jed’s pompous voice: “Lord High 
Guardeen of the Milk Bottle, come forth!” 

Evidently some one responded, for there was 
a shuffling of feet and the mews increased. 

“Mitch Master of the Tin Plates, you will pre- 
sent thyself,” Jed pursued his role of master of 
ceremonies. 

There was a rattle of plates and a voice scatted 
an impatient pussy. 

“Grand Big Chief of the Milk Drinkers, do 
your duty,” said Jed. Then, in an admonishing 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE . 223 

undertone, “Pearten up, Slow Coach. Them cats 
are hungry.” 

“ 'Course they are,” said Elmore's voice. 
“They’re two hours late getting grub. I ain't 
to blame.” 

Peggy's curiosity now led her to exceed the 
bounds of discretion. She came from behind 
the brush pile and stepped into the boys' den. 

It was a queer place, constructed with long, 
hard labor. The boys had leveled off a place on 
the steep bank below the bridge, and had built a 
cabin of old cross-ties that had been thrown aside 
when the trolley road was repaired. They had 
piled earth and stones over the top and sides of 
their cabin and over all of the backward-sloping 
front, except the part occupied by the door. This 
was constructed of three or four boards, with 
a window-like opening at the top, covered with 
screen wire. When it was laid close against the 
cross-ties which formed the door posts, and was 
covered with the bushes now piled at one side, 
it was unnoticeable a few steps away. 

Peggy, standing now in the doorway, saw little 
at first. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dim 
light, she distinguished the figures of Jed and 
Elmore, Tom Croye, Mike McGinley, Tim Rogan, 
and Roger Park. They were standing in a circle 
and in the center of the circle were — cats! a 


224 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

dozen or more, lapping milk from plates set be- 
fore them. Each boy had charge of two or 
three cats, to see that they ate from their own 
plates, in their own special places. All were so 
intent on this duty that for a minute Peggy was 
unnoticed. 

Then Jed, realizing that the light had waned 
suddenly, looked toward the door. He uttered 
an exclamation of surprise and rage that drew 
the attention of the other members of the gang, 
and they faced the intruder with amazement 
which passed quickly into fury. 

After one motionless second, Jed sprang like 
a tiger at his sister and — we grieve to say it, but 
truth must be told — he slapped her face soundly. 
Elmore, too, jumped at her and gave a vicious 
pinch on the arm. With one accord, the boys 
pushed and shoved her, and before she or they 
uttered a word, she was outside the den, the en- 
raged center of an enraged gang. 

“Mean thing!” 

“Sneak.” 

“Spy!” 

“If I had known you were following us ” 

“Following you! And I coming here to get 
that cedar for Lois, on my way home from Mrs. 
Peckinbaugh’s, where Pve been to get shoes for 
you — and you pinching and you slapping me like 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 225 

that!” Peggy glared from one of her brothers 
to the other. 

“Honest Injun, Peg, weren’t you following 
us?” asked Jed. 

“Didn’t I tell you I was going and coming an 
errant, Jed Callahan? When I saw the hole and 
saw you there, ’course I looked in. And you 
jumping on me and hitting me till my ears ring 
like a dinner bell — and you scratching me, like 
a wildcat! We’ll see what pa says, when I tell 
him.” Peggy turned away. 

Jed caught her sleeve. “Peg, if you honest true 
weren’t spying — and if you wouldn’t tell ” 

“ ’Course she’ll tell. Girls always do,” said 
Mike McGinley. 

Peggy faced him wrathfully. “I’ll ‘Bum-a- 
lock’ you, see if I don’t. You pushing and shov- 
ing me out!” 

Jed, too, turned on him wrathfully. “What do 
you mean, Mike McGinley?” he demanded. 
“Pushing and shoving my sister !” 

Meanwhile, Roger laid an entreating hand on 
Peggy’s arm. “If you didn’t mean to see and if 

you just wouldn’t tell ” he said. “We have 

such a good time ! Say, boys, she knows the pass- 
word. We might let her join and then she 
couldn’t tell. What say?” 

Peggy’s curiosity was getting the upper hand 


226 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


of her anger. "I’ve seen what you do — but why 
on earth do you do it ?” 

"Oh, to have a gang!” said Jed. "IPs lots of 
fun. We’ve been in it since Thanksgiving. It 
took days and days to make this den.” He looked 
around with pride. 

"What did you make it for?” inquired Peggy. 

"Oh, just for fun! ’Cause the bank and the 
cross ties were here. And to have a gang. First, 
we just met here. And then we got the cats.” 

"Where on earth did you get ’em all?” asked 
Peggy. 

"Oh! they’re alley cats, just strayers,” said 
Jed. 

Mike explained more at length. "We find 
them and bring them here and we shut them up 
in a box a day or two and we feed them every day 
— salmon and milk and things.” 

"Oh! that’s where your money goes, and all 
the extry victuals you lay hands on,” said Peggy. 

"It takes a lot of milk and things to feed all 
these cats,” said Mike. "We’ve got fourteen 
now. It was awful when we had thirty-seven.” 

"What did you get so many for ?” asked Peggy. 

"We couldn’t help it. It was the rule.” Jed 
was spokesman. "The one that brings most cats 
is Prince-president. ’Course, ev’ry boy wants to 
be It and brung all he could lay hands on. And 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 227 

every cat was that many more to buy grub for, 
and make boxes for, and feed. It was fierce, I 
tell you!” 

“But what did you do with the others ?” Peggy 
wanted to know. 

“Oh! we play a ’dopting game,” said Roger. 
“Jed made that up.” 

“From Anne Lewis,” explained Jed. “I 
thought it up when you said about her being an 
orphant and ’dopted.” 

“We get our cats nice and fat,” Roger ex- 
plained. “And we brush ’em and comb ’em and 
tie ribbons ’round their necks. Then we put one 
in a basket ” 

“And we take and set it on a doorstep,” inter- 
rupted Jed, “where we’ve found out there ain’t 
a cat. With a card ” 

“On top the basket,” interpolated Elmore. 

Jed raised his voice and continued, “A card 
saying ‘Please a-dopp me.’ See!” He showed 
one bearing the legend in sprawly letters. “And 
if the folks — mostly they keep them — if they 
don’t, we take ’em back and try again. It’s lots 
o’ fun.” 

“I think it’s awful kind,” said Peggy. 

“Yes,” said Roger. “See how fat they are. 
All but these two.” He pointed at two gaunt fe- 
lines in wire-covered boxes. “We don’t want 


228 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


them to get too fat. They're the cat-fighting 
ones.” 

“The what?” asked Peggy. 

“The ones that get turned away from homes 
three times hand-running,” said Jed. “We keep 
them and make them cat-fight.” 

“Why?” asked Peggy. 

“Oh, because it's the rule!” answered Jed, con- 
clusively. 

“Why, there's Dirty Candy!” Peggy ex- 
claimed. “Or a cat like him, only so fat and slick. 
And with a blue ribbon on.” 

“It is Dirty Candy,” said Elmore, sheepishly. 

Mike spoke severely. “That cat's been ready 
for a 'dopter two or three weeks. And Jed and 
Elmore keep puttin’ off.” 

Elmore furtively stroked the grayish-yellow 
fur. “He — he ain't quite fat enough. And 
maybe his ears'll grow out some.” 

“You just don’t want to give him away,” 
Roger asserted. 

“ ’Course I do,” Elmore said indignantly. 

“Let him go home,” entreated Peggy. “Lois 
likes him so much and she misses him so.” 

“No, sirree!” Jed answered firmly. “Can’t 
no cat be turned loose, after it’s Bum-a-locked. 
That’s the rule.” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 229 

“What are we goin’ to do about Peggy? And 
her knowin’ about our gang?” inquired Mike. 

“And about our den?” said Roger. 

“And the passwords?” added Jed. 

The boys deliberated and finally agreed that 
Peggy might become a Bum-a-lock, because then 
it would be her secret and she would have to 
keep it. 

But Peggy hesitated about accepting the of- 
fered honor. 

“It’s grand, and Ed love it,” she said. “But 
I don’t want to worry folks, and have to be tell- 
ing stories to hide what I’m doing.” 

“What difference does that make?” Jed wanted 
to know. “They’re just little white lies.” 

“Yes,” said Peggy. “But it looks like that kind 
makes trouble, too. I’ve been worrying so, for 
fear you were in some mischief. — Tell you what, 
I’ll join, if you’ll tell — not the secret, but that 
you’ve got a gang that’s lots of fun and no harm.” 

After a little discussion the boys agreed to this. 
In the dim lantern light Peggy was initiated and 
became a member of the Bum-a-lock gang. 

“I’ve got to skeet home and get a pick-up sup- 
per,” she said, as soon as the ceremony was over. 
Still she lingered. “Now I’m a Bum-a-lock, have 
I got a say-so about things?” she asked. 

“Same as us,” agreed Mike. 


230 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“Then — Lois wants him so ! — I say let’s put a 
’dopt card on Dirty Candy and leave him at our 
door.” 

Jed and Elmore raised a joyful whoop. 
“Glory! Why ain’t we thought of that?” they 
exclaimed. 

“I’ll fix him and bring him now,” said Jed. 
“Elmore, you and Mike can show Peggy the 
short cut up the bank. Roger and Tom will 
help me fix the door.” 

And so the Bum-a-lock meeting was ad- 
journed. 


CHAPTER XIX 


A S the days went on, the thing which Peggy 
feared seemed more and more apt to come 
to pass. Albert Fischer was getting 
ahead of her in class work. The end of each 
week showed an advance on his part, putting him 
further ahead in some studies and lessening the 
margin between him and Peggy in others. 

Even Milly Blake, spurred on by prospects of 
a locket and chain, was proving a dangerous 
rival. 

Yet it seemed to Peggy that she must win that 
scholarship prize. She had planned so often, so 
wisely, and so unselfishly what to do with the 
money that she felt as if, by some sort of in- 
herent right, it was hers. 

“We need it so bad, Pm bound to get it,” she 
said to her mother, one Sunday afternoon. 
“When you come home, Dr. Malone says positive 
you mustn’t work hard, like you used to do. 
’Course, I’m more of a helper now. And that 
money’d pay rent and buy ready-mades, so you 
231 


232 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

wouldn’t need to sew so much. Oh, Eve got to 
get it!” 

“If I was just home to spare you the house- 
work ” began Mrs. Callahan. 

But Peggy pooh-poohed vigorously. “Why, 
look at the good being here has done you. How 
grand it’ll be to have you at home, all well again ! 
And it sure is a help for you to do the mending. 
See what a big bundle I brought you this week! 
I ain’t even kept any button-sewing on. I’m go- 
ing to put in a week of solid study. I’m going 
to bed early to-night and get up soon in the morn- 
ing and study two good hours for that English 
test. If I get good marks on that, I’ll be even 
with Albert. And then all I’ve got to do is to 
get a little more ahead and I’m sure to win.” 

When Peggy went home, her mother cares met 
her, even before she entered the door. Little Dan 
had slipped out unnoticed and was splashing an 
old shingle up and down in a puddle, laughing 
with glee when the mud and water showered over 
him. He was sopping wet and blue with cold. 
Peggy rubbed him dry and put on clean clothes, 
reproaching the other children for having let him 
escape. Each one insisted that the others were 
to blame. 

“Looks like none of you ain’t any good but 
Peggy,” said Mr. Callahan. Then he added self- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 233 

reproachfully, “I hadn’t ought to have been so 
took up with readin’ the paper. I ought to have 
made them rapscallions mind Danny-boy.” 

“Well!” said Peggy, cheerily. “No harm’s 
done. It’s warm and dry he is now.” 

But bedtime found Dan hoarse and fretful, 
and Peggy looked anxious. 

“I wouldn’t mind so much, if it was Susie or 
Finn,” she said to her father. “They get head 
colds and get over them. But Danny’s croupy. 
He’s had two or three bad croupy colds since ma 
was gone.” 

“If it’s like croup, we’d better send for the doc- 
tor,” said Mr. Callahan, uneasily. Croup was 
feared in the Callahan family — with sad reason, 
for the baby before this one had been its victim. 

“Ma says ’tain’t any use to have the doctor 
when he ain’t got it,” answered Peggy. “The 
thing to do is to fend it off. And when it comes 
it’s so quick you need to do your own doctoring. 
I’m going to grease Danny’s chest with mutton 
tallow and rub it between his eyes and down his 
nose, like ma does.” 

Peggy greased the baby lavishly and then put 
a spoon beside a bottle on the mantelpiece. 

“What’s that?” asked Mr. Callahan. 

“Ipecac,” answered Peggy. “It’s what ma 
gives for croup. She said never to go to bed 


234 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

when one of the children’s got a croupy cold, 
without having the ipecac bottle handy. There 
ain’t much in the bottle or I’d give Dan a dose 
now. Anyway, I think he’s better. Listen to 
his breathing. It don’t sound so hoarse. Well, 
I’m going to bed. I want to get up soon in the 
morning and study that English.” 

As Peggy snuggled down in drowsy comfort, 
she heard — as she was aware later — a metallic, 
hard cough. Then she dropped off to sleep. 

She had been asleep — a minute or all night, 
she didn’t know which — when she awakened sud- 
denly. The door was open into the next room, 
and she heard restless movements. 

“I wonder if Danny’s pushed off the cover,” 
she thought sleepily, half-consciously. “Ooh! 
It’s nice and warm in bed. I hate to get up. I 
guess that was pa or Finn moving ’round.” But 
she could not doze off again. “I can’t sleep till I 
see about Dan, so I might as well get up,” she 
grumbled to herself. “Looks like I can’t rest day 
or night.” 

She went into the other room and bent over the 
cot, to put the cover in place. She heard a gasp- 
ing, labored breathing that made her heart stand 
still with terror. Dan had croup. 

Peggy lighted the lamp and for a frightened 
second she stood staring at the little fellow. Nev- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 235 

er before had she seen him like this. His breath 
came with such difficulty through the croup-con- 
tracted windpipe that it seemed as if he were 
strangling. His eyes bulged, his face was drawn, 
and the blood was settling around his mouth and 
nostrils in bluish splotches. 

“Dan ! Danny-boy !” she cried. 

He looked at her and gave a hoarse wail. Then 
he stretched out his restless hands, crying, “Ma ! 
ma !” For a second, Peggy clasped him close and 
in her heart she, too, was crying for her mother. 

“What’s the matter?” called Mr. Callahan, 
startled awake by Peggy’s voice. 

“Croup,” she explained. She had put Dan 
gently back in his cot and now had the ipecac bot- 
tle in her hand. She measured a dose. 

“Take this, Dan; take it, like a good baby, for 
sister,” she entreated gently. 

Dan opened his mouth and seemed about to 
obey. Then, with a quick sideways movement of 
the head, he pushed aside the spoon and the dark 
sticky liquid trickled over his night dress. . Peggy 
looked from the empty spoon to the face distorted 
and discolored by the painful, irregular breath- 
ing. . 

“Oh, Danny !” she exclaimed. “But you didn t 
mean to do that, did you, dear? You must take 
your medicine. You ’ She turned up the bottle 


236 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

and drained out a few drops. “There — there 
ain't another dose here,” she gasped, meeting her 
father's frightened eyes with terror in her own. 

“Wake the boys. Send for the doctor,” said 
Mr. Callahan, in a taut voice. 

Peggy ran upstairs, calling the boys. The un- 
usual quality in her scared tones got them up at 
once, pulling on their clothes before they were 
well awake. They were to go for the doctor. 
Dan! Croup! Oh, hurry, hurry, hurry! 

Jed dashed off, followed by Elmore. Peggy 
ran back downstairs and stood at the cotside. 
Pitiful and frightened, she gazed at the drawn, 
discolored face and listened to the labored breath- 
ing broken now and then by a hoarse, fretful wail 
or a painful cough. Over and over again came 
the appealing cry, “Ma, ma, ma! Take Danny- 
boy! Please, ma!” 

Peggy bent over him, with loving helpless 
words. “There, there, dear! Let's keep the 
blanket up. Don't let's get cold.” Presently the 
little fellow moved restlessly and seemed for the 
first time to see his sister. He stretched out his 
arms and appealed to her. “Peggy, Peggy !” 

The tears streamed down Peggy's cheeks as she 
gently put under the cover the little arms now 
stretched appealingly to her and then restlessly 
threshing the air. Oh, it was agonizing to stand 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 237 

there and wait and do nothing while little Dan 
was suffering ! But there was nothing she could 
do. Suppose — suppose he died before the doctor 
came. Was there nothing she could do? 

All at once she remembered a night when Dan 
had croup and the ipecac bottle was empty. Her 
mother had put a little turpentine into a vessel 
of boiling water and held Dan's head, covered 
with a shawl, over the steam. She said it was an 
old nurse's remedy. And it relieved him. True, 
that was not a severe attack like this. But it 
could do no harm to try the remedy. 

Peggy took up the baby and put him in the 
arms of her father who was sitting up in bed, 
his frightened eyes fixed on the suffering child. 

“He pulls the cover so," she said. “Hold him 
and keep him warm. I'm going to fix a dose for 
him." 

Fortunately the water in the kettle on the 
hearth was not yet cold, and there were coals 
smoldering in the ashes. Peggy raked them to- 
gether and put on some dry wood. In a few min- 
utes, the water was boiling. But, oh ! how long 
those minutes seemed, filled with Dan's labored 
breathing! 

Peggy emptied the boiling water into a stew- 
pan, and poured into it a few drops of turpentine. 
Then she held the vessel close to Dan's face and 


238 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

threw a shawl over his head. He fretted and 
kicked, but, in spite of himself, he inhaled the 
vapor. 

“How did you know he had croup ?” asked her 
father, as Peggy soothed Dan and held him close. 

“I don’t know,” said Peggy. “I came to see if 
he was covered up. If I hadn’t !” She shuddered 
at the thought of the baby lying there suffering 
with no one to minister to his need. “I ought to 
have come before. I heard him cough — I don’t 
know whether I was ’sleep or ’wake — that rattly 
cough.” 

“Will — will he live?” her father whispered, ap- 
pealing to Peggy, as he had been wont to appeal 
to her mother in domestic trouble. 

And Peggy, the mother instinct in her trained 
and quickened by these months of responsibility, 
comforted him, saying cheerily, “Oh ! he’ll be bet- 
ter pretty soon. He’ll be all right.” 

Soon, indeed, he was better. The cough be- 
came less hard and less frequent. The contracted 
muscles relaxed. Dan breathed with more ease 
and the congested blood began to circulate. 

And then at last, Jed and Elmore came with 
the doctor. 

“The danger is over,” said Dr. Malone, after 
a hasty examination. “Evidently he had a se- 
vere attack of spasmodic croup. That needs 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 239 

prompt, proper attention. What did you do?” 

P e ggy told, with the doctor nodding approval 
and interjecting, “Yes, yes! Right, all right!” 

“You’re a jewel of a girl,” he said when she 
finished. “I couldn’t have done better myself.” 

“There’s no smarter girl than my Peggeen,” 
said her father. 

“Not even in the old country where my mother 
says they grow best of all,” were the doctor’s 
farewell words. 

Peggy put her arms around her father and 
kissed him good-night, as she used to do when 
she was a little, little girl. Then she crept wearily 
to bed. The clock was striking two. She had 
meant to get up at four. Well, she would get 
up at five — and study 

She awakened with a start. The clock was 
striking again — striking — striking seven ! Seven ! 
Of course it was wrong. Ah, no! It was, in- 
deed, seven o’clock. Overcome with fatigue and 
excitement, she had slept soundly. Her father, 
not allowing any one to awake her, had hobbled 
on his crutches into the kitchen and was having 
the children bring him ingredients and utensils 
to prepare breakfast. 

Peggy sprang up and dressed hastily. But, 
alas ! there was no time to review for the English 


240 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

test. When breakfast was cooked and eaten, it 
was time to start to school. 

That was a hard, hard day. Many of the test 
questions were from the part of the book Peggy 
hackplanned to review that morning, and she had 
to leave unanswered one question after another. 
Poor girl! She was so tired and discouraged 
that, before she knew she was crying, tears were 
falling on her paper. 

She brushed them off and winked back those 
that were ready to fall. “ ’Cause I missed one 
lesson, ain’t any reason to give up,” she said 
sternly to herself. “I’ve got to work harder, that’s 
all. I just can’t and won’t and mustn’t fail.” 


CHAPTER XX 


FTER its Christmas gifts, the Ladies’ Aid 



Society turned to other cases and the 


Holly Hill family was practically forgot- 
ten. Now and then, indeed, the Callahan case 
was casually recalled. It was mentioned, one 
spring evening, at a Social Service meeting in the 
Patterson home. The purpose of the meeting was 
to extend the use and usefulness of school build- 
ings, but talk drifted; and so it happened that 
Mrs. Lawson, to illustrate a statement about the 
ingratitude of the poor, described, in her exact, 
unhumorous way, their experience with Lois Cal- 


lahan. 


Among the guests was a young lady who tried 
hard to keep a proper countenance in face of Mrs. 
Lawson’s solemnity. Once or twice she failed 
entirely and had to put her fan or handkerchief 
to her face, while her slender shoulders shook 
with suppressed mirth. 

“I wish I could see that quaint little girl !” she 
said impulsively to her hostess. 

“That wish needs no fairy godmother,” an- 


242 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

swered Miss Drayton. “Here am I, happy to go 
with you to the Callahan home. My niece — my 
niece by adoption and affection — was the heroine 
of the hat-pin.” 

“How charming !” said the young lady. “Shall 
we go to-morrow? No, I fear my day is full.” 
She took a little note-book from her bag and 
consulted it. “Can we go on Friday afternoon, 
at four?” she asked. 

Miss Drayton agreed. 

“Then we will go — without announcing our- 
selves beforehand,” said the young lady, who did 
not like to walk always in the lime-light of her 
father’s station. 

The next morning at breakfast, Anne listened 
with interest when Miss Drayton said that the 
President’s Daughter was at the meeting and was 
going with her to see Lois. Anne, very natu- 
rally and very promptly, went out of her way to 
tell Peggy. And Peggy, all excitement, ran home 
to carry the tidings to Lois. 

“The President’s Daughter is coming to see 
you !” she exclaimed. 

“What !” said Lois. 

“The President’s Daughter is coming to see 
you !” repeated Peggy. 

“What makes you think so?” 

“I know so,” Peggy answered with emphasis. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 243 

“She told Miss Drayton, and Miss Drayton told 
Anne, and Anne told me. Whew! Think of the 
President’s Daughter coming to our house! 
Ain’t it good your room’s fixed up so grand?” 

“H’m !” said Lois, without enthusiasm. Then 
she asked, “What’s she like?” 

“I ain’t never seen her,” said Peggy. “But 
she’s bound to be awful fine and fixey. Our 
President is gre’ter than kings and empires — um- 
pires — emp’rors, I mean — so she must be awful 
grand.” 

“Does she wear a crown, like King Herod’s 
daughter in Susie’s Sunday-school book?” asked 
Lois. 

“No,” said Peggy. “Presidents’ folks don’t 
dress like that. But I guess she wears fine clothes 
and lots of jewelry and she rides ’round in a 
grand carriage all the time.” 

“Oh!” said Lois, eagerly. “I bet she looks 
like that dancing lady we saw to the show. Don’t 
you mind how grand she was? — all in pinky 
thin things. When is she coming, Peggy?” 

Peggy could not say. Anne had not told that, 
for the good and sufficient reason that she did 
not know, as Miss Drayton had not mentioned 
the time set for the visit. 

So Lois lay in bed and, between her Wackerson 
plays, thought how wonderful it would be some 


244 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

day to see a carriage with prancing white horses 
— yes, they must be white and four of them — 
stop at the door. In would walk a lovely lady, 
arrayed in pink silk with ruffles to the waist, 
adorned with sparkling necklaces and bracelets 
and rings, and wearing a huge, many-plumed hat 
aslant over her becurled, begoldened hair. Oh, 
Lois got a very distinct picture from Peggy's 
vague suggestions ! 

And then one day two visitors came, — Miss 
Drayton and a simply-dressed, pleasant-faced 
young lady. 

“Here is a lady who has come to see you, Lois," 
said Miss Drayton, putting the best chair beside 
Lois's bed, for the Other Lady. 

“How do you do?" said Lois, shaking hands 
gravely. 

“Very well, I thank you," answered the Other 
Lady, choosing the words with which Dickens's 
Little Paul answered the clock and Dr. Blimber. 
“I fear you aren’t very well. You wouldn’t be 
in bed, if you were. But I hope you haven’t many 
pains and aches. They are bad companions, espe- 
cially for lonely days." She straightened a pil- 
low and smoothed the sheet, in the way of one 
to whom it is instinctive to give service wherever 
there is need. 

“I don’t hurt much," said Lois. “And Dr. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 245 

Malone says soon I am going to be well enough 
to sit up. Every time he comes, he says I’m 'get- 
ting along.’ ” 

"How lovely !” said the Other Lady, with real 
interest. 

Just then, Peggy came in. The other children 
were out playing and she had waited after school 
to get Anne Lewis’s help in review work for the 
final English test. 

Anne came home with Peggy, to bring Lois a 
new paper doll. She was surprised to find Aunt 
Sarah there, with a strange lady, and was going 
shyly away when the Other Lady asked, with her 
engaging smile, "Is this the little niece you men- 
tioned ?” 

"Yes,” Miss Drayton said. "This is my niece, 
Anne Lewis.” 

Anne shook hands with the lady and answered 
one or two questions. Then she sat down on a 
little stool in the corner, while Peggy went to 
give Finn some bread and molasses. If Aunt 
Sarah and the Other Lady did not stay too long, 
Anne would wait to tell the doll’s name and his- 
tory. She liked to sit there and watch the Other 
Lady who had a radiant charm. It was not only, 
nor chiefly, the bright hair, the bright lovely 
color, the bright quick smile ; there was the shin- 
ing and sparkling of an undimmable inner light. 


246 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“I have heard about your friends, the Wacker- 
sons,” the lady said, turning back to Lois. “Their 
home is behind those pretty roses, isn’t it?” 

“Yessum,” said Lois, her shyness fading before 
the lady’s matter-of-course acceptance of the 
Wackersons. 

“Do they come to see you often?” asked the 
lady, as naturally as if she were asking about 
Prilla Hicks or Mrs. McGinley. 

“Wellum, Miz Wackerson don’t come so often 
now. She keeps so busy with five children to do 
for and she makes Big Girl Jinny and Tom Boy 
stay home to help her. And course Little Sis 
Mamie can’t come by herself.” 

“Why, Lois!” Anne said surprisedly. “Five 
children! You’ve always told about just three.” 

“Oh! haven’t you heard ’bout the twins?” 
asked Lois. 

“The twins? Why, no!” said Anne. 

“Tell us about them, dear,” said the Other 
Lady. 

“Oh !” said Lois, eagerly to Anne. “You see, 
Miz Wackerson she went to market las’ Sat’day, 
and she left Big Girl Jinny to look after Little 
Sis Mamie. Tom Boy he hadn’t come home from 
selling papers. And Miz Wackerson she was 
gone pretty long; for she wanted some stew 
meat and she was waiting for market-closin’ 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 247 

time, so’s prices would maybe-so go down. And 
when she got home, Big Girl Jinny was at the 
door and she calls out, ‘Come on, ma ! Eve been 
lookin’ for you.’ And Miz Wackerson she says, 

‘I know I’m late, but that stew meat ’ And 

Big Girl Jinny she says, ‘Ne’ mind, ma, ’bout the 
stew meat now. Come in and look. Your baby 
you was expectin’ has come — and she is twins.’ 
And Miz Wackerson she was so surprised!” 

The two ladies went into peals of laughter and 
laughed till tears ran down their cheeks. Lois 
watched them with grave surprise and when they 
glanced at her sober little face and tried to stop 
laughing — why, they only laughed the more. 

The Other Lady was the first to recover her- 
self. “Pardon me, dear, for laughing,” she said 
gently to Lois. “I think the Wackersons are very 
interesting people, especially the twins.” Her 
voice quavered, but she controlled it and went 
on. “I hope you like picture books. Here is 
one I found in a shop and bought because it is 
like one I loved when I was a little girl. I hope 
you’ll enjoy looking at it, with the Wackersons 
and your other friends. 

“And I always liked nut caramels to munch 
on, when I was looking at a picture book, because 
they last so long. So I brought you some cara- 
mels to go with the book.” 


248 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Lois put out her hand to receive the gifts, but 
the ladies’ laughter had made her too shy to 
speak. The Other Lady chatted pleasantly with 
Miss Drayton and Anne, until Lois was put at 
ease ; then she glanced at her wrist watch and said 
regretfully that she must go. 

"You’ll tell her who you are,” suggested Miss 
Drayton, urgingly. "It will be such a pleasure 
for her to remember the honor.” 

"If you think it will please her ” The lady 

made a gesture of acquiescence. 

Miss Drayton turned to Lois. "Little girl,” 
she said, "this lady who brought you the candy 
and the pretty picture book is — the President’s 
Daughter !” 

Lois looked at the Other Lady and laughed. 
"She’s joking, you know,” she said. "The Presi- 
dent’s Daughter is coming to see me some day. 
I know how she looks, too.” 

"How does she look?” asked the lady. "Opin- 
ions differ.” 

Lois answered confidently. "She doesn’t wear 
a crown, because her father is President, and 
Presidents are so grand they don’t have to wear 
crowns, like kings and umpires, for people know 
them without. She rides in a carriage with four 
white horses, and she wears ruffly silk and lots of 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 249 

jewelry that jingles and dangles, like the lady 
I saw onct to the show.” 

Miss Drayton was beginning an explanation, 
but the Other Lady checked her. “Oh, no, no, 
please! Don't let us spoil that lovely picture.” 
She laughed merrily. “Let her keep it, as a com- 
panion piece to the Wackerson twins.” Then she 
penciled a few words on a card which she slipped 
in the book. “There !” she said. 

And when Peggy saw the card, she gasped and 
said, “Why, the President's Daughter was here to 
see you — and we treated her just like she was 
folks!” 


CHAPTER XXI 


HE days passed and brought near and 



nearer the end of the school year. The 


children were counting now, not merely 
the weeks, but the days that lay between them and 
vacation. 

As the days grew longer, Peggy managed to 
put more time on her lessons. She rose early and 
studied before time to start cooking breakfast. 
She kept a book propped open at a lesson, and 
gave her eyes and her mind to difficult words and 
dates in the intervals of kitchen duties at which 
she was now expert. Both her housework and 
her lessons improved and she took new and 
greater interest in both. 

“Peggy Callahan seems so much more alive,” 
commented Miss Ellis. “She is going to run Al- 
bert a close race for the scholarship prize, 

but ” 

“But!” 

Albert, too, was clever and studious. He had 
more time for study than Peggy, and as she im- 
proved, he was improving, also. So the interval 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 251 

between them did not decrease. In fact, it wid- 
ened. For, when any home emergency distracted 
Peggy and made her stand still or lose ground, 
Albert forged ahead. And ever so small an ad- 
vantage once lost, Peggy could never regain. 

She knew this. In the bottom of her heart, she 
knew that, unless something happened — some 
vague something for which she desperately hoped 
• — she was bound to lose. 

Jed and Elmore and Susie were now intensely 
interested in the contest and were helping with 
the home work so as to give Peggy more time for 
study. Her brothers’ old slighting attitude to- 
ward her as “nothing but a girl” had changed in- 
to pride of “a great girl” who, father said, was 
“all ’round the smartest girl in Georgetown.” 
In their zeal, the boys talked of her success with 
an assurance which poor Peggy, alas ! could not 
feel. 

And what were the boys doing these days? 
The Bum-a-lock gang had depleted the George- 
town supply of homeless cats, and, during the 
spring days, its members found new sources of 
interest. For a while their cabin was a pirate 
den. Then it became a fort which was boldly 
attacked and bravely defended. 

But in the mild days of mid-May, it was al- 
most deserted. Then the boys’ hearts were set 


252 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

on going swimming. Several times they went 
in the canal, only to be ordered out by prudent 
elders who said that the water and the weather 
were too cold. 

“I wish we had a swimming place where no 
one could find us,” exclaimed Mike McGinley, 
one afternoon when his mother had compelled 
them to come out of the canal, shivering and 
angry. 

“That’s what — Golly ! I know the place,” ex- 
claimed Jed Callahan. “Elmore, you mind that 
old rock quarry, with water in it, up the hollow ? 
— the one we call Black Water Hole? That’s the 
very place.” 

“Sure, and that it is,” agreed Elmore, enthu- 
siastically. 

“How big is it?” asked Albert Fischer, who 
was one of the swimming enthusiasts. 

“Oh, bigger’n that Y. M. C. A. pool,” said 
Jed. “And no bathing suits and tickets required. 
I bet the water’s deep enough to dive anywhere.” 

“How deep is it?” inquired Tom Croye. 

“I don’t know,” Jed replied carelessly. “It’s 
so black you can’t see bottom. What difference 
does that make? We ain’t wanting to get ac- 
quainted with the bottom. We are going to 
swim.” 

“Have you been in?” asked Albert. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 253 

"No,” Jed answered. “I ain't thought about 
that place till now. Anyway, the water's so far 
down I couldn't get to it. I've got to have a rope 
to let me down. I'm going to get a rope and go 
there Sat'day." 

“Is your father going to let you?" inquired 
Tom. 

“He might not, if he knew," said Jed. “So I 
ain't going to ask him. Then I won't be disobey- 
ing him." 

The other boys decided to adopt the same pru- 
dent course. 

On Saturday morning, they made their furtive 
way to the abandoned quarry. Jed carried a 
clothes line which the boys fastened to a tree near 
the quarry brink. Then, hand over hand, they 
went down the sixteen feet of rope that landed 
them on a rock ledge three feet above the water. 
They dived and swam, fortunately without strik- 
ing projecting rocks which would have been quite 
invisible in the water, blackened by decaying 
leaves. The rock ledge, however, was so small 
that not more than four boys could crowd on it 
at the same time — a serious disadvantage for a 
gang of six. And there were no other flat ledges 
near the water surface. 

“The next time we can bring another rope," 
suggested Albert. “We can tie it to a tree up 


254 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

there and make it fast to a board down here. 
Then we can hold to the board like a raft.” 

Jed promptly took the lead. “No,” he said. 
“Let's make a raft, a first-rate one. Pat Pat- 
terson, a fellow I know, was at Mountain Lake, 
down in Virginia, last summer, and he told me 
about a prime good raft they had. It was made 
of boards nailed to timbers that were fastened on 
four barrels, — headed-up, empty barrels, you 
know — to keep it from sinking. We'll make a 
raft like that, only not so big. Two barrels will 
do. Where'll we get them?” 

The gang resolved itself into a ways and means 
committee of the whole, to devise plans of secur- 
ing the needed materials and conveying them to 
the desired place. It was the work of several af- 
ternoons to collect barrels, nails, and timber at 
the Black Water Hole. Then a Saturday morn- 
ing of beaver-like diligence resulted in the con- 
struction of a substantial little raft, supported at 
each end by a barrel. 

According to Jed’s instructions, some of the 
other boys had “borrowed” clothes lines from 
home. Two of these ropes were slipped under the 
raft, which was put at the edge of the quarry, 
and then they were wound around a near-by tree. 
Jed pushed the raft over the brink, while the other 
boys swung on the ropes and tried to control its 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 255 

descent. In spite of their efforts to hold it back — 
efforts which nearly drew them into the quarry — 
the ropes slipped through their hands and the raft 
fell with a mighty splash and went under the 
water. 

"Gee ! It’s gone,” exclaimed Elmore. 

The other boys groaned agreement. But they 
had not labored so long and hard to no purpose. 
The raft rose gallantly to the surface. 

"There his! Bully!” cried Jed. 

"There his ! There his !” cried the other boys, 
jumping up and down in excitement. 

They quickly lowered themselves to the ledge 
and climbed on the raft, and a few minutes later 
their little naked bodies were splashing joyously 
in the water. 

The other boys were proudly content with their 
achievement, but Jed saw cause for dissatisfac- 
tion. 

"The raft is in the way of our diving rock,” he 
complained. "I tell you what we can do. Let’s 
tie it with a short rope — this clothes line is too 
long anyway — to that sharp rock over there. 
Then we can slide down the rope to the rock, and 
dive and swim to the raft.” 

The suggestion met with enthusiastic approval 
and was promptly carried out. 

The Bum-a-lock Society now became a Swim- 


256 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

ming Club from which Peggy was excluded and 
to which Albert Fischer and one or two other 
good swimmers were admitted. On Saturday, 
and on every warm afternoon when they could 
escape from school and home early enough, the 
boys went to Black Water Hole. They per- 
formed feats which risked their lives ; indeed, the 
shut-in pool of unknown depth was a constant 
menace. But for a few days, all went well. 
Things might have continued to go well, but for 
Jed, who regarded each new venture as a mere 
stepping-stone to a more daring act. 

On the last Saturday in May, a day of clouds 
and sunshine, the boys disported themselves in 
the quarry pool an imprudently long time. Their 
lips were blue with cold and it was through chat- 
tering teeth that they declared the water was 
“plenty warm” and “all right.” 

“Pve got to go home,” Mike said at last, climb- 
ing on the raft. He was promptly followed by 
Tom and Roger who were near him. 

“One more deep dive before we go !” called out 
Jed who was standing, with Albert and Elmore, 
on the ledge that the boys called the diving rock. 

“No,” protested Albert. “The water iss got 
cold. Let’s not do more risks. And there may be 
sharp rocks near under. We may to get hurt.” 

“You never will 'to get hurt,’ ” mimicked Jed. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 257 

“You old ’Fraid Cat! You daren’t dive. What 
about you, Elmore ?” 

“The water’s got awful cold,” objected El- 
more, shivering. “But if you dive, I will, too.” 

“Good old sport!” approved Ted. “Come on. 
One, two ” 

Just as “three” was on Jed’s lips, Tom Croye 
called, “Look at that whopping big turkey buz- 
zard.” 

Jed paused and looked. Elmore, poised for the 
starting signal, tried to stop, but flopped over 
awkwardly and went into the water. 

“What a dive!” cried Mike, ironically. “The 
way he hit the water sounded like Fourth of 

July-” 

Jed was about to plunge in, but Albert, who did 
not like that splashy dive, caught his arm, say- 
ing, “Wait. See where Elmore comes up.” 

Jed waited a few seconds that seemed very 
long. For Elmore did not come to the surface. 

Albert’s eyes were anxious, but he spoke re- 
assuringly in answer to Jed’s panic-stricken look. 
“He iss trying to act smart. Maybe he iss trying 
to swim under the water to the raft.” 

“I made him do it.” That was Jed’s self-re- 
proachful first thought. “Elmore, Elmore! 
Come up. Don’t scare me so.” His voice quav- 
ered. 


258 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

There was no answer. 

A horrible fear seized all the boys. Tom 
Croye began to whimper. Roger Park, leaning 
from the raft and gazing into the black water, 
stammered over and over, “He’s drownded, he’s 
drownded, he’d drownded.” 

“Watch. He’ll come up. We’ll get him,” said 
Albert, sharply. 

“I made him do it,” Jed repeated. “I’m going 
to the bottom to find him.” 

He tugged at a loose stone on the quarry side 
and dived with it in his hands. With its help, he 
went to the bottom — only twelve feet below, in- 
stead of the immeasurable depth the boys im- 
agined. 

He groped on the quarry floor. There were 
only loose stones, leaves, fallen branches, — no hu- 
man creature. He dropped his rock and rose to 
the surface. He swam to the rock ledge, and 
looked questioningly at the boys on the raft. 
Mike shook his head. Tom was still whimpering. 
Roger, calling “Help, help, help !” started up the 
rope, missed a hand hold, and slipped back to the 
raft. 

Jed, with confused resolve to thresh about in 
the water until he found Elmore, was loosing his 
hold on the rock. But Albert gripped his hand. 

“Get up. There iss no sense in your drowning, 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 259 

when any minute we got to work on Elmore/’ 
he said roughly, as Jed hesitated to obey. “Keep 
your head. Come up and stay put.” 

Jed scrambled on the ledge where Albert stood 
leaning forward, with his eyes searching the sur- 
face of the water. 

“I ought to see them. I ought to see them,” he 
was saying to himself. 

The waves Jed had made were subsiding into 
ripples. There, there — no ! — yes, yes ! there near 
the edge of the raft were rising some small bub- 
bles. 

Albert dived, and came up, swimming with 
long, even strokes toward the raft, toward the 
bubbles that showed where Elmore was. How 
stupid not to think of that ! The awkward plunge 
had taken Elmore down and up at an unexpected 
place; he had come up under the raft, instead of 
to the water surface. 

Albert filled his lungs with air and went under 
the raft. His hand clutched and tugged at a 
dangling arm. Yes, Elmore was there, under the 
raft, caught between the barrels. His comrade 
pulled him out, getting carelessly and danger- 
ously close for a second. It was a second too 
long. Elmore, frightened and half-conscious, 
threw his arms around his rescuer’s neck and they 
went under the water together. 


260 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


For a fraction of a second, Albert lost his head 
and struggled. Then he got hold of himself and 
began to practice, in a life-and-death struggle, 
the things that had been a part of his Scout drill. 
He trod water. He threw his left arm around 
Elmore to pull him close, and put his right hand 
on Elmore's face, covering the mouth with the 
palm and clutching the nostrils between fore- 
finger and middle finger. Then he kicked his 
knee in Elmore's stomach, to force the air out of 
the lungs, while, by the pressure on mouth and 
nostrils, he prevented the inhaling of air. 

Elmore ceased to struggle and Albert pushed 
him to the edge of the raft. The other boys had 
stood dazed during the brief struggle. Now they 
pulled Elmore on the raft and gave helping hands 
to Albert who for a minute lay exhausted, while 
the other boys crowded around the unconscious 
Elmore. 

Albert dragged himself to his feet. Elmore 
must be carried up as soon as possible. There 
was not room on the raft for the necessary res- 
cue work. 

“Up, all you !" he said. “I tie him to the rope 
and you pull." 

Jed, now over his panic, gave ready and in- 
telligent aid. He followed the other boys up the 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 261' 


rope and they hauled up Elmore, fastened with a 
slip noose around his body. 

Then the rope was lowered again and Albert 
climbed up. He found Jed and Mike making a 
stretcher wth coats and poles. Tom Croye was 
rubbing Elmore’s hands. Roger Park was wring- 
ing his hands and crying, “ ’Tain’t no use! He’s 
drownded dead!” 

“Stop. That ain’t the thing,” Albert said to 
Jed and Mike. “We must here work. Not waste 
time to carry him. Get away !” he said, pushing 
Roger aside. “You go to a telephone. Get 
Emergency Hospital and call a doctor.” 

“Put on some clothes, idiot!” called Mike, as 
Roger was starting away, naked. 

“You go, too, Tom. Here we do not need you. 
You will have sense to telephone,” said Albert. 

As he talked, he was lifting Elmore, whom the 
other boys had laid flat on his back, and was turn- 
ing him over on his stomach, the face a little to 
one side so as to permit the free passage of air. 
Then Albert extended the arms above the head. 

“Oughtn’t we to rub him?” asked Jed. 

“Not yet. Wait,” Albert answered, kneeling 
beside the limp, motionless body. 

He put a hand at each side, in the space be- 
tween the short ribs. First, he let the weight of 
his body fall on his hands, in order to force the 


262 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


water out of the air passages; then he relaxed the 
pressure, so as to make the chest expand and take 
in air. Carefully and rhythmically, Albert made 
the movements, as if they were one of his beloved 
music exercises. “One, two!” There came the 
pressure. “Three, four !” It was relaxed. Long 
minutes dragged past. There was no sign of 
life. 

“He’s dead,” Mike said, in a hushed tone. 

“Don’t!” implored Jed. It was the thought 
that he was fighting away from his own heart. 

Albert looked up encouragingly. “We give not 
up,” he said. 

At last, at last, there came a faint, fluttering 
breath. Albert caught and strengthened it, with 
the rhythm of his movement. But for many min- 
utes it was not repeated. Then Elmore’s eyelids 
flickered and there was a stronger breath. Then 
came another pause, not so long as before. And 
then a gasping breath — another — another — 
pieced into regularity by Albert’s movements. 

“Rub now — legs, arms, body — toward the 
heart,” Albert said, not pausing for a second in 
his work of artificial respiration. 

Now at last came the summoned help. Tom 
and Roger hurried back up the hollow, with doc- 
tors, followed by a group of curious men and 
boys. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 263 

The doctors examined Elmore and adminis- 
tered a stimulant. Then they questioned the 
boys, for the first time sufficiently conscious of 
themselves to begin to put on their clothes. From 
the pell-mell account, one thing was clear. 

“You’re a little Dutch hero,” said one of the 
doctors. 

The elder doctor put an approving hand on Al- 
bert’s shoulder. “Good rescue work, my boy!” 
he said. “He was nearly gone when you got him 
out. Now, we’ll soon have him ready to go 
home.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


O N Monday, the one absorbing topic at 
Westside School was the adventure at 
the quarry. Albert’s schoolmates looked 
at him with the admiring awe they gave to few 
people besides the President and Walter John- 
son, their baseball idol. Some of the tribute of 
their admiration was paid to Elmore, and even, 
in lesser degree, to Jed and Mike and to Tom and 
Roger. 

The story was told over and over by Jed and 
Mike who answered repeated questions with re- 
peated explicit details. In fact, they and not Al- 
bert became the center of attraction at recess. 
Albert made a very unsatisfactory hero — to the 
children. He volunteered no information and he 
answered questions briefly, shamefacedly. 

“Elmore dived. He rose under the raft. I 
dived and came out with him. That iss all.” No 
more could be dragged from him. 

“Oh! he’d have drowned sure, if it hadn’t been 
for Albert,” said Mike, who was eager to give his 
comrade due honor, especially as Albert said 

264 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 265 

nothing about the sorry figure the other boys 
made. Now, shining with his reflected glory, 
they were even beginning to feel themselves he- 
roic. “I thought he was gone when Elmore 
gripped him ’round the neck,” Mike said. “But 
he kicked loose and pushed Elmore up where I 
could reach him. It was nervy, I tell you.” 

“And he’d have died after we got him out,” 
said Jed, “if it hadn’t been for Albert doing all 
them stunts to make him breathe.” And for the 
twentieth time Jed repeated, “The doctor said it 
was good rescue work.” 

“That was nothing. All we Scouts know to do 
it,” said Albert. He would have crept away with 
his book, but the boys crowded after him. “So 
much fussing,” he grumbled. “I didn’t do noth- 
ing but what I couldn’t help to do.” 

Conscious of the unEnglish idiom into which 
he had lapsed, he glanced at Jed. But Albert need 
not have felt uneasy. Anything he said or did, 
was now safe from ridicule. The boys were his 
adoring subjects, and “the king could do no 
wrong.” 

Absorbed in the personal interest of the affair, 
they were slow to see another side. And yet the 
very word which named it had been handed them 
by the hospital doctor. 


266 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


Jed repeated it now. “That littlest doctor said 
he was a hero.” A sudden thought came to Jed. 
Why hadn’t it come before? “Say, fellows!” he 
said importantly. “Albert’s a hero all right. Bet 
you, he’ll get that hero prize.” 

There was a chorus of agreeing voices. 

Other claims and chances for the Dickson prize 
had been interestedly disputed before now. It re- 
quired presence of mind for Lucy Martin to 
snatch off her coat and wrap it around her little 
sister running screaming up the alley, ablaze 
from matches with which she had been playing. 
It was brave of Jim Alwood to jump into the 
canal and drag out Lewis Winn who slipped in 
when the wet bank caved under his feet. It was 
a daring deed for Tim Barney to snatch the 
Bailey children from the feet of runaway horses. 

But even the children realized that in Albert’s 
act there were a steady courage and an intelli- 
gent, persevering presence of mind which put it 
in a class quite by itself. With unstinted enthu- 
siasm, they acclaimed the fact. 

Like honor was being paid Albert that same 
afternoon by a group of children at the Patterson 
home. The little Callahans were having an af- 
ternoon party with Anne Lewis, while a sewing 
woman fitted the dimity frocks Miss Drayton was 
presenting for the school-closing exercises. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 267 

Miss Drayton had sent for Lois who was now 
able to sit up, but could not walk so far as the 
Patterson mansion. The chauffeur did not ven- 
ture on Roundabout Lane, but it was even 
grander, Lois thought, to have him wait on Ca- 
nal Road, at the foot of Holly Hill, where more 
people could see the big, shiny car. Peggy and 
Susie and Finn and Dan went with Lois to the 
stately home. Their shyness was soon dispelled 
by the friendliness of Anne and the excitement 
of discussing the quarry adventure. 

Peggy gave circumstantial details about what 
Elmore felt and Albert did and Mike said and 
Jed thought. There was a pleasant vagueness 
about Tom and Roger of whom the other boys, 
with gang loyalty, told only that "they were awful 
scared.” To this they added that Roger started 
for a doctor, "naked as a bird;” that was too 
funny not to tell. But they confessed that none 
of them thought of putting on clothes until the 
doctors came. 

Anne listened with eager exclamations and in- 
terested questions to Peggy’s account of the 
event. Susie and Lois followed the many-times- 
heard story with rapt attention, and Susie re- 
minded Peggy of the smallest omitted detail. 

"Oh, Peggy!” cried Anne, with shining eyes. 
"It’s like a story in a book. Albert is a wonder- 


268 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


ful hero, and his being so modest — It really isn’t 
cross in him to hate to talk about it — it is modest. 
That’s the way all real heroes do, in the books. 
And daddy says, in life, too. He knows some live 
heroes. And now we know one ourselves. Oh, 
oh, oh!” Anne interrupted herself with the little 
shrieks which expressed her sudden joy. “Peggy, 
Peggy ! Albert is a hero ! This is the heroest — 
heroickest — thing! He will certainly get that 
prize. Isn’t it lovely to have some one get it 
that we — you — know? And he saved your 
brother, and your other brother was there. Why, 
it’s like being in your own family. Isn’t it 
lovely ?” 

Peggy ought to have been delighted, of course. 
But her first feeling was a brief — ah ! very brief 
— jealous pang. Not for the hero prize. Oh, 
no! She was glad and thankful for Albert to 
get that. But wasn’t that enough? It was the 
biggest, best thing that had ever been offered — 
not only in their school, but to all the pupils in all 
the city. And as Albert was to have that, it 
seemed as if she — who had worked so hard, 
against such odds, and with such sore need — 
might get the other prize, the scholarship. And 
yet in her heart Peggy knew she had no chance 
of it. During the last month Albert had forged 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 269 

ahead and gained a lead which she knew she could 
not overtake. 

“I bet I’ve done better than he’d have done, if 
he’d had a whole family to cook and clean and 
wash and tend for,” Peggy thought resentfully. 
“I ought to have that prize. It looks like I’m 
bound to have it.” 

“Don’t you think so, Peggy? And aren’t you 
glad?” Anne’s joyous, insistent voice repeated. 

“Ain’t I the pig? If it hadn’t been for Albert, 
Elmore would have drowned. And to think of 
me grudging him anything!” This was the 
thought which followed swift on Peggy’s jealous 
pang. Then she was ready to answer earnestly 
and truthfully, “It’s just splendid he is, Anne, 
and he deserves — everything, everything. And 

I hope — it’s all right for him to get ” The 

words “scholarship prize” stuck in her throat. 

Anne looked up with surprise. Then she re- 
membered that Albert was the foremost contest- 
ant for the scholarship prize for which poor 
Peggy had worked so hard. She had forgotten it 
for the second, in her enthusiasm over Albert’s 
heroism and its recognition and reward. 

She squeezed Peggy’s hand. “I just don’t be- 
lieve he’ll get — the other.” 

“Yes, he will,” said Peggy, soberly. “And if 
we didn’t need the money so terrible — with pa 


270 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

not getting full wages so long, while he was hurt. 
And now ma’s coming home — oh, joy! — but doc- 
tor says she must be careful about good eating 
and not overworking. Oh, Anne! That money 
would just mean everything to us now.” 

“Of course, it would,” agreed Anne. “And 
Pm sure you are going to get it. I just Teel it in 
my bones/ as Aunt Charity used to say.” 

This subject was of such absorbing interest 
that Anne forgot her responsibilities as hostess — 
and waitress, too, for it was Nora's afternoon off. 

Finn was getting restless and very hungry. 
He had been charged and had promised — on pen- 
alty of never coming again — not to ask for any- 
thing. But there before him on the table was all 
that good food and nobody was getting any be- 
cause Anne and Peggy would talk and keep on 
talking. 

At last Finn could stand it no longer. He held 
up his plate and half sobbing, piped out the ques- 
tion, “Does anybody want a nice, clean — empty 
plate?” 

Anne went into peals of laughter and the other 
children joined in her mirth. 

“You poor baby, you !” she said. “I beg your 
pardon for forgetting my duties. We'll put 
something in that plate and then you'll be willing 
to keep it, won't you ?” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 271 

“You bet!” agreed Finn. 

There was a brief, satisfied silence. 

But Finn, puffed up with pride at having re- 
sumed the suspended “party,” was unwilling to 
subside into obscurity. His eyes, roving around 
the stately old dining-room, had been attracted 
by a handsome silver cup on a side table. When 
Anne held the milk pitcher above his glass, he 
pointed to the cup and said, “I want that. I want 
my milk in that pretty tin cup.” 

“Finn!” Peggy’s horrified voice rebuked him. 

“Never mind, Peggy,” said Anne. “He’s so 
little. Of course he likes that pretty shiny cup. 
He shall have his milk in it. It’s my very own.” 

The cup had belonged to her mother and had 
been Anne’s from her babyhood days and had 
shared her changing fortunes. Left by her in an 
orphan’s “Home,” it had been regained when she 
was restored to the Patterson family, as its 
adopted daughter. No wonder she looked lov- 
ingly at it and said, “I think everything tastes 
better out of it than out of any other cup in the 
world.” 

Anne put the cup before Finn and brimmed it 
with cool, creamy milk. He greedily gulped down 
the milk and then lifted the cup in his two hands. 

“Ain’t this a pretty tin cup?” he said. “Look 
at the house and trees on it.” 


272 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“That ain’t tin,” explained Peggy. “It’s sil- 
ver, solid silver.” 

“Silver!” said Susie. “Why, I thought they 
made money out of silver.” 

“So they do,” explained Peggy, in as much of 
an aside as was possible. “And cups, too, for rich 
folks. I guess that cup is worth a hundred dol- 
lars.” 

“Whew-ee! ain’t that grand?” said Susie, in 
awed tones, fixing her eyes on the cup. 

Cindy, who had been taking care of little Dan, 
now brought him for Peggy to hold, while she 
served the icecream. 

Finn gave his undivided attention to the fa- 
vorite dainty, but even icecream could not draw 
Susie’s interest from the wonderful cup. From 
time to time she put out her finger and touched 
it admiringly. When Finn pushed it aside, to 
reach for another cake, Susie drew it near her 
and fondled it. “And it’s silver, real money sil- 
ver,” she said wonderingly. 

Anne noticed her casually and smiled. “It’s 
pretty, isn’t it?” she said, patting Susie’s curls. 

“Yessum. And silver !” Susie said without tak- 
ing her eyes off the cup. 

Finn held out his plate for icecream. “I can 
hold some more,” he announced. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 273 

“Finn! You had a big plateful,” whispered 
Peggy. “You don’t want any more.’’ 

“I’m pretty full,” he answered. “But it’s the 
goodest I ever had. I can hold some more.” 

Anne, laughingly silencing Peggy, served him 
again. Then she said, “Please excuse me one 
little minute. I hear Pat in the hall and I want 
to give him my library book to return. Peggy, 
let me take the baby for Aunt Sarah to see. I 
want to show her how cute his curls turn up at 
the back of his neck. Help yourselves to any- 
thing you want on the table. I’ll be back in a 
minute.” 

Finn calmly reached for the cake plate. 

Peggy intercepted his hands. “Pig!” she said. 
“You’ve eaten a dozen. You haven’t any man- 
ners. And you’ll have the awfullest stomach- 
ache.” 

“These little ones ain’t achey. Anne says 
they’re moonshine and sugar. Just two, Peggy, 
please !” pleaded Finn. 

“That’s the last two you are going to have,” 
said Peggy. “I’m sure ashamed of you. I ain’t 
going to bring you again.” 

“They asked me to eat, and I et,” said Finn. 
“That fat colored lady says victuals was made for 
ap’tites like mine.” 

During this controversy, no attention had been 


274 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

paid to Susie, who now slipped down from the 
table and said, “Ain’t it time to go home, Peggy? 
I want to go home. ,, 

“Pretty soon,” said Peggy. “It ain’t manners 
to go as soon as you stop eating. You’ve got to 
set a while.” 

“I want to go home. I want to go now,” said 
Susie, in a subdued little voice. 

“What’s the matter?” asked her sister. Then, 
seeing both of Susie’s hands clasped across her 
blouse, Peggy vexedly answered her own ques- 
tion. “Lawsee! such pigs! Here you’ve got 
stomach-ache, too. Now I’ve got to take you 
home, and that sewing lady wanted to try on my 
dress again.” 

“I know the way home. I c’n go by myself,” 
Susie said meekly. 

“Well, run along,” said Peggy. “I’ll stay and 
do the manners. If you have a bad pain, ask 
Mrs. Hicks to measure you a dose of Jamaica 
ginger. The bottle’s on the shelf by the clock.” 

“I don’t need it,” said Susie. .And away she 
sped. 

An hour later, Miss Drayton left Peggy and 
Lois and Finn and Dan on Canal Road, at the 
foot of Holly Hill. Miss Drayton suggested tak- 
ing them around Potomac Park, but Peggy re- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 275 

gretfully said she had lessons to study and, too, 
she must see about Susie. 

She was relieved, when she arrived at home, to 
find Susie, evidently quite well, in the yard with 
the little Rogans. Lois joined her and they took 
chips for dishes and set a table on a flat rock, and 
served mud for cakes and icecream. 

While the little Callahans were acting over the 
party, Anne was giving Mr. Patterson a full ac- 
count of it. She was interrupted by Cindy who 
came to the library door. 

“ ’Scuse me, Miss Anne,” she said. “Is you 
got your silver cup here?” 

“My cup?” said Anne, in surprise. “Why, no 
indeed. IPs on the dining table. Finn Callahan 
had his milk in it. IPs there on the table.” 

“No’m, it ain’t,” said Cindy. “I done cleared 
the table. ’Tain’t there. Nor on the side table. 
Nor nowheres in the dining-room. I done looked 
high and low.” 

“Oh!” said Anne. “It — it must be there. No 
one’s been there but the Callahan children.” 

“Naw’m,” agreed Cindy, who had never liked 
the “poorers,” as she called the Callahans. “Naw, 
ma’m, there ain’t. And that cup certainly ain’t 
there.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


P EGGY, happily unaware of the suspicions 
directed by Cindy against the Callahan 
family, studied her lessons and prepared 
the simple evening meal. The children were as 
ready for it as if there had been no party at the 
Pattersons’ three hours before. 

Susie ate heartily, but she was quieter than 
usual. She looked perplexed. 

“Pa,” she said after supper, following her 
father out on the porch where the odor of his 
pipe mingled with the fragrance of the roses on 
the trellis. “Pa, how do you make dollars?” 

“Make dollars?” he questioned, looking won- 
deringly up from his paper. “I make ’em by 
hard work.” 

There was a silence, puzzled and ruminating 
on Susie’s part. Then she ventured another in- 
quiry. “Does somebody give you things to make 
dollars out of?” 

“What?” he asked blankly. 

Susie became a little more explicit. “Suppose 
you had — if somebody gave you — something all 
276 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 277 

solid silver — a cup or something” — her voice 
dropped and she looked around, to make sure that 
none of the other children was within earshot — 
“worth a hundred dollars. What would you 
do?” 

“ ‘Suppose’ ! Say, you are a match for Lois,” 
scoffed her father. 

“But what would you do with it?” insisted 
Susie. 

He humored her seriousness. “I’d take it to 
the mint and get good dollars for it.” 

“The mint ? What’s the mint ?” Susie asked. 

“It’s the big building on the Avenue, the other 
side of the White House, at the corner where the 
cars turn,” answered her father. “What next?” 

“Nothing,” said Susie, and she crept back in- 
doors. 

Mr. Callahan glanced after her amusedly. 
Then his eyes fell on an interesting news item 
and the incident passed out of his mind. 

At bedtime Peggy found Susie lying across 
their bed, with her hands clutched tightly under 
the pillow. Peggy lifted her gently to a more 
comfortable position. As she moved the pillow, 
the child’s clenched hand unclosed and something 
bright and shiny rolled on the floor, with a re- 
sounding clatter. 

Peggy looked down, surprised and dazed. 


278 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Susie had — had Oh, no, no, no ! But yes ! 

Hardly knowing what she did, Peggy stooped and 
picked up the pretty shining thing and stared at 
it. Suddenly she dropped it on the bed and with 
both hands she shook Susie fiercely. 

“Susie! You Susie !” she said in a fierce whis- 
per. “You low-down little thief! What do vou 
mean — stealing Anne’s cup ?” 

Susie’s eyes opened wide. “I ain’t stole noth- 
ing,” she said. “I ain’t stole her cup.” 

“You can’t lie out of it,” exclaimed Peggy, 
sternly. “Here’s the cup. Here ’tis. ’Twas un- 
der your pillow.” 

“I ain’t stole it,” repeated Susie. “I ain’t. 
Ain’t you hear Anne say for us to take anything 
we wanted on the table? You said this was sil- 
ver, like money. And I wanted the money for 
ma. And pa said I could get — get it at the — the 
mint,” sobbed Susie. 

“Anne didn’t mean things — cups and spoons 
and dishes,” Peggy explained angrily. “Haven’t 
you sense to know that ? She was talking 
about eatings, sandwidges and milk and cake and 
cream.” 

“She said ‘anything we wanted,’ ” insisted Su- 
sie, beginning to whimper. 

“You ought to know what she meant,” said 
Peggy. “Shut up ! Stop crying !” she hissed in a 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 279 

whisper. “Do you want pa to hear you, and me 
have to tell him you’ve taken Anne’s cup ? Good 
as they are to us, too! Giving us our school- 
breaking-up dresses. Hush-sh !” The command 
softened into an entreaty, with a soothing pat on 
the shoulder of the sobbing child. 

Just then the outer door rattled. “Wh-what’s 
that?” whispered Peggy. Her fingers trembled 
and she dropped the cup in her lap and covered it 
with her apron. For a terrified minute she 
thought that policemen, come to search for 
Anne’s missing cup, were at the door. But it was 
only the wind. 

Susie, now thoroughly frightened, would have 
wailed aloud, but Peggy clamped a silencing hand 
over her mouth. 

There was a moment of frightened silence. 

Then Peggy said, “This cup’s got to go back. 
It’s got to go back to-night, before they miss it 
and send policemen to arrest us for thieving. I’m 
going to take it to Anne.” 

Susie clung to her sister. “Peggy, I didn’t 
mean — mean to steal,” she sobbed. “I didn’t 
think it was — was thieving. Honest to good- 
ness !” 

“You did it underhand,” said Peggy, severely. 
“Ain’t anything right that’s underhand.” She 
announced the discovery of the truth toward 


280 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


which she had been traveling for months, as if it 
had always been a part of her life. “I’m going to 
take this cup to Anne and tell her the straight- 
out truth. She’ll believe me, if that big-faced old 
Cindy won’t.” 

Peggy wrapped the cup in her apron and 
slipped out the kitchen door. She ran down 
Roundabout Lane, up the trolley track, and along 
the Georgetown streets. Once or twice she 
paused in the shadow of a tree trunk or crossed 
the street, to avoid meeting people. She climbed 
the stone steps in the retaining wall and ran up 
the flagged, boxwood-edged walk on each side of 
which the Lombardy poplars stood like soldiers — 
or policemen. Peggy breathed a sigh of relief 
as she stood at the door of the Patterson man- 
sion. 

And yet the hardest part of her task was before 
her. She put her hand to the doorbell, then 
paused, her heart in her throat. The tinkle of 
that bell would bring a servant whom she must 
face to explain why she had come alone to see 
Anne at bedtime. Perhaps they would take her 
to Miss Drayton or Mr. Patterson. Perhaps the 
cup had already been missed and they would ac- 
cuse her of stealing it. Oh, what must she do! 

She dropped the unrung bell and laid her hand 
on the door knob. It yielded to her touch, and the 



PEGGY RAN TO THE DOOR 

























































PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 281 


door opened, inviting entrance into the hall. 
Miss Drayton and Mr. Patterson had gone to a 
neighbor’s and, as the maid was out, they had left 
the door unlatched, in homelike Georgetown fash- 
ion. 

Peggy stepped hesitatingly over the threshold. 
She hardly realized that she shut the door behind 
her. She was thinking, quickly and eagerly. The 
big dark door on the left, near the end of the 
dimly-lighted hall, led into the dining-room. A 
few steps beyond that door was the table from 
which Anne had taken the cup. Without being 
clearly conscious that she was leaving the 
straightforward course which she had urged on 
Susie, Peggy went down the hall, — first hesitat- 
ingly, then with furtive speed. The door yielded 
to her trembling fingers and the moonlight 
streaming through an unshuttered window re- 
vealed the array of silver on the table. 

Peggy put the cup in place, crept out of the 
room, closed the door gently, and was halfway 
across the hall when the street door opened. Pat 
Patterson stepped into the hall. 

Peggy uttered a little cry and then stood mo- 
tionless, with downcast eyes. 

Pat looked surprised, but he spoke courteously. 
“Good evening, Peggy? Have you seen Anne? 
Or you wish to see her?” 


282 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


No word was possible to Peggy. 

Pat looked at her, puzzled by her silence. 
“Is — is there anything ” he began uncer- 

tainly. 

Just then a heavy step sounded on the back- 
stairs and Cindy's voice preceded her. “That 
you, Marse Pat? Nora’s out. You want any- 
thing?” Then Cindy advanced and saw Peggy. 
“What’s she doin’ here?” she asked gruffly. 

“I don’t know,” said Pat. “I just came in and 
met her here in the hall.” 

“What are you doin’ here this time of night?” 
Cindy demanded. “What else have you come to 
steal ?” 

“Cindy!” rebuked Pat. 

“She stole Miss Anne’s silver cup to-day,” 
Cindy asserted. “Now she’s sneaked in, for 
something else. That’s what you get for bein’ 
friendly with these here poorers.” She clutched 
Peggy’s shoulder. 

“Anne !” gasped Peggy. “I want to see Anne.” 

“You ain’t gwine to see her,” declared Cindy. 
“You’re gwine to see a policeman and give back 
Miss Anne’s cup and say why you came in here 
this time of night and what else you’ve tooken.” 

“I never stole anything in my life,” cried 
Peggy, in distress. “Anne! Anne! I want 
Anne!” 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 283 

“Don't — don't be so distressed," said Pat, 
soothingly. “You shall see her. No one shall 
hurt you. You shall see Anne. Cindy, take your 
hand off Miss Peggy's shoulder." 

The indulged old family servant obeyed the 
voice of authority. She stood grumbling and 
glaring at Peggy, while Pat went halfway up the 
stairs and called, “Anne! Anne! Peggy Calla- 
han is here and wishes to see you. Will you 
come down? Or .shall she come to your room?" 

“ ‘Anne, Miss Anne,' " grunted Cindy. 
“ 'Tain’t Miss Anne she was lookin' for, cornin' 
in this house 'thout ringin’ the bell. She's nos- 
in' 'round to find something to steal 'sides silver 
cups." She placed herself against the dining- 
room door. Even Master Pat shouldn't turn this 
thief loose there. 

“I didn't, I didn't," protested Peggy. “I came 
to tell Anne about it. Oh, Anne, Anne !" she ex- 
claimed. 

She sped up the stairs to the landing where 
Anne, in answer to Pat's insistent call, had come, 
in her kimono, with hairbrush in her hand. 

“What in the world " she began and then, 

stopped by the sight of Peggy’s grief and terror, 
she threw her arms around her harassed friend. 
“Don't," she implored. “Don't, don't look so, 
Peggy." 


284 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

“Miss Anne, uh Miss Anne! Le’ me tell 
you ” Cindy began. 

But Pat stopped her. “Let Miss Anne alone, 
Cindy,” he said authoritatively. “Father and 
Aunt Sarah will be in soon. You can go to them 
about whatever is disturbing you.” 

Cindy, grumbling protests, returned to the 
kitchen. 

Anne, meanwhile, had taken Peggy into her 
room and was listening, bewildered at first, to the 
story. Then she understood — oh, blessed Anne! 
she always understood. She consoled Peggy and 
said how natural Susie’s misunderstanding was 
and how generous it was for her to want the 
cup, to give help to her mother. 

And Peggy sobbed for Susie as well as herself, 
now seeing the affair, with Anne’s eyes, from 
Susie’s side. 

“You poor, poor child!” said Miss Drayton, 
who had come in and, sent upstairs by the indig- 
nant Cindy, was sharing the explanation. 

“Pat will walk home with you. It is too' late 
for you to be out alone,” Miss Drayton said when 
Peggy rose to go. 

“You’re awful good to me,” Peggy said ear- 
nestly. 

“Good !” echoed Anne, throwing her arms 
around Peggy’s neck. “I think you’re the brav- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 285 

est girl I know — a regular heroess — to come 
here — in the dark — all by yourself — to bring 
back that cup. It was a hard thing to do.” 

“Hard!” said Peggy. “It was terrible. And 
that Cindy — Oh, it was fierce ! I tell you, Anne, 
I wouldn’t go through it again for anything in 
the world — not for a whole dollar.” 


CHAPTER XXIVj 


HERE was a gala air about the Callahan 



home on the first Saturday in June. The 


place was as neat as a new pin, — as neat, 
indeed, as a whole paper of pins. 

In every spare minute for days past, Peggy 
had been cleaning house. The other children 
combined to help and to keep the place spick-and- 
span. Susie and Lois scrupulously left their 
muddy shoes on the porch, and Jed and Elmore — 
now enjoying bare feet — remembered to rub off 
the mud or dust before they came indoors. Finn, 
unreminded, went out on the back step to devour 
his frequent portions of bread and molasses. 

Peggy washed all the windows and Susie 
helped to polish them with old newspapers. And 
the curtains, washed by Peggy, were re-ironed 
by Prilla Hicks because they hung askew after 
Peggy’s ironing. In the end they looked as good 
as new, hanging in crisp folds over the shining 
windows. 

Jed worked an afternoon at the grocer’s for a 
new wood box and split up the old box into kind- 


286 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 287 

ling which, with great labor, he packed inside a 
barrel hoop. Then he ran in and out the kitchen, 
cocking his head on one side and admiringly view- 
ing the remarkable structure leaning against the 
wall, as if he had never seen it before. 

Peggy used great system in her house-clean- 
ing. Beginning with the closets and the attic 
room, every place was thoroughly cleaned. And 
as each was put in order, it was closed to all ex- 
cept absolutely necessary use. By Thursday, the 
family was limited to the kitchen. And on Fri- 
day evening, after the kitchen was scrubbed, the 
Callahans occupied the porch until bedtime and 
then tiptoed into the immaculate house. 

In several diligent afternoons, Jed and Elmore 
made the yard as spick-and-span as the house. 
They pulled up the weeds and raked the grass and 
swept the yard with brush brooms. Elmore per- 
suaded some workmen to give him enough white- 
wash to whiten the stepping-stones. All the flow- 
ers were carefully watered and tended. For days 
no one pulled a rose, so that the bush might be as 
bouquet-like as possible. 

What was the occasion of these diligent, whole- 
hearted preparations? 

You could not be two seconds near a Callahan 
without being told. Their mother was coming 
home. 


288 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 


For weary months, the Callahan children had 
reckoned backward and forward from the first 
Saturday in November. This thing happened 
“the week before ma went away” ; that event took 
place “two Fridays after ma was gone.” Re- 
cently — oh, joy! — they had a new calendar and 
reckoned the days between them and their moth- 
er's home-coming. Now at last the day, looked 
forward to even more eagerly than vacation, was 
at hand. 

On Saturday morning, Peggy rose early to give 
final retouches to the exquisitely neat house. Af- 
ter breakfast, the children were sent outdoors — 
luckily, it was a well-sunned day. Peggy made a 
rice pudding for supper. She chopped up cold 
meat for croquettes and scrubbed the potatoes, 
to have them ready to put on to cook. She got 
out their one tablecloth and put on top of it the 
napkins — a luxury hitherto unknown in the Cal- 
lahan family — which she had made out of flour 
bags, and hemstitched. 

At noon, she and the children had a hand lunch- 
eon of bread and molasses. Then she prepared 
for her father's bath by putting a tub on a strip 
of rag carpet in the kitchen and laying his clean 
clothes on a chair. 

Mr. Callahan hurried in, munched a sandwich, 
splashed and scrubbed and spluttered, and came 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 289 

out, shining clean, in his Sunday clothes. Then 
he marched off to the hospital, to escort his wife 
home. 

Peggy prepared a bath and clean clothes for 
each of the children in turn, ending with herself, 
and carefully restoring the kitchen to its immacu- 
lateness. Jed and Elmore ran to deliver their 
newspapers in Georgetown, promising to keep 
clean and to hurry home. The other shining 
youngsters — Dan, Finn, Susie, and Lois — were 
ranged in a row on the porch, and pledged not to 
stir outdoors, for fear of acquiring a speck of 
dust or rumpling a ruffle. 

While they were sitting there, a stranger, di- 
rected up Roundabout Lane by a grocer’s boy, 
stopped at the gate and asked with pardonable 
curiosity, “What are you doing, little folks, sit- 
ting there like ducks in a row?” 

“Waiting for ma to come home,” Susie an- 
swered primly. 

“If your ma’s away from home, who curled 
your hair, and washed your faces and your 
dresses and the floor?” 

“Peggy, sir,” said Finn. 

“Our sister Peggy,” said Susie. 

“Peggy does it all, sir. We couldn’t get on 
without Peggy,” said Lois. 

The gentleman nodded sagely. “I thought you 


290 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

might have a sister Peggy who was just that kind 
of girl,” he said. And then he and the children 
discussed family affairs with a freedom that 
Peggy would have checked if she had heard the 
conversation. But she was busy in the kitchen 
and did not even see the stranger. 

At last he strolled downhill, pausing to chat 
with Mrs. Rogan and Mrs. McGinley who were 
having a neighborly visit at the garden fence. 

When he went away, Mrs. Rogan said, “What 
a deal of questions he asked about the Calla- 
hans!” 

Mrs. McGinley nodded. “Jane Rogan, do you 
know what I think?” she said solemnly. “I think 
he's a rich kin of the Callahans. Won't it be 
grand if he's come to make their fortunes?” 

Mr. Callahan, meanwhile, was traveling lei- 
surely homeward with his wife. In his hospital 
visits he had had a feeling of being out of his 
own world in a new one by which his wife was 
made a stranger to him. Now at last she was 
out of that hated, beneficent place and was his 
own again. Even the constraint of his Sunday 
attire could not repress his joy. 

Down the winding road from the hospital to 
the street, they went, alone together, in their 
Sunday best, as before their marriage. As in 
their old courtship days, Mr. Callahan took pos- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 291 

session of his wife’s hand and they walked side 
by side, swinging clasped hands. 

“It’s done you a world of good, Maggie,” he 
said, gazing at her with admiring eyes. “You’re 
lookin’ like a lass in her teens.” 

Mrs. Callahan dimpled and blushed with pleas- 
ure. “Ah, Johnnie! You’ve a sad flatterin’ 
tongue in your head,” she laughed. 

“You look like Peggy’s own sister,” he de- 
clared, as they stood on the street corner, waiting 
for a car. “And there’s no better to be said for 
her than that she’s as smart and as pretty a lass 
as her own mother, praise be!” He turned and 
gave his wife’s lips a resounding smack. 

“Oh, Johnnie! On the street, where folks 
might see!” Her tightened hand clasp and ca- 
ressing tone robbed the words of all but the sem- 
blance of rebuke. 

“I’m not carin’ if all the world see,” Mr. Cal- 
lahan answered stoutly, as he gallantly helped her 
on the car. “It’s that fine to have my woman 
back home, I feel like shoutin’ it from the house 
tops.” 

They got ofif at the Georgetown corner where 
the car turned back cityward, but instead of going 
straight home, Mr. Callahan stopped at a gro- 
cery. “Let’s go in here,” he said. “We ought 
to have something grand — sausage or pink cake 


292 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

or such — for your first Sunday dinner back 
home.” 

u Well, look who’s here! If it isn’t Mrs. Calla- 
han !” exclaimed the grocer, wiping his hands on 
his apron and coming forward to shake hands. 

You’re so fat and well-looking I hardly knew 
you.” 

“That’s how we’re goin’ to keep her, from now 
on,” said Mr. Callahan, beaming proudly. 

While his wife and the grocer exchanged com- 
pliments, he glanced around. Presently he said, 
“That looks like a fair ham, hangin’ there.” 

“Fair! It’s prime good,” said Mr. Wells, tak- 
ing it down. “Just fat enough. Cured just right. 
And look at the price !” He nodded at the price 
slip attached. “It’s like giving it away. Think 
of that ham, with cabbage swimming in its 
grease. Um-m-m!” He smacked his lips ap- 
preciatively. 

“If you’ve just the cabbage it needs, I’ll take 
the ham and them, too,” said Mr. Callahan, 
grandly. 

“Here they are. Best on market. Solid. 
Sweet. Fit for a king.” 

“I want ” 

“One head will do; a middlin’-size one,” said 
Mrs. Callahan. 

“Two, and big ones,” ordered Mr. Callahan. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 293 

“ You’re too stintin’, Maggie. Two. Wrap ’em 
and the ham, Wells. I’ll take ’em home.” 

“My boy is going out your way pretty soon. 
Glad to send ’em,” said Mr. Wells. 

“I’d rather take ’em,” answered Mr. Calla- 
han, fumbling in his pockets. Finally he said, 
“I don’t seem to have the money, Wells.” 

His wife had looked anxious as soon as he be- 
gan to fumble in his pockets and now her cheeks 
flamed. Instinctively she started to pull out her 
purse and then she paused, remembering that it 
was practically empty. She turned her head, 
to avoid the humiliating sight of Mr. Wells’s 
taking back the unpaid-for packages. 

“Well, but, Johnnie — — ” She was going to 
stammer that they did not need the things and 
really it was better not to get them. 

But her speech was cut short in its beginning 
by Mr. Wells’s prompt reply. “That’s all right, 
Callahan. Pay when it suits you. I’m glad to 
oblige a good customer like you.” 

Mr. Callahan roared with laughter. He pulled 
out a roll of bills. “Here’s your money, Wells. 
Here ’tis. I was just after showin’ my wife 
what credit her husband’s got these days.” 

He chucked his wife under the chin before he 
picked up his change and his bundle. All the 
way home he was chuckling with mirth, occa- 


294 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

sionally throwing his head back and emitting a 
shout of laughter. 

The children ran to meet their mother and 
crowded around her, like swarming bees around 
their queen. They went indoors, all talking at 
once, Mrs. Callahan clasping all of the close 
group that her arms could encircle. 

Without a moment's delay, she was ushered to 
every room and closet to behold and praise their 
order and neatness. Her admiring attention was 
called to the crisp curtains and the shining win- 
dows and the orderly kitchen shelves and the 
hoopful of kindling. Then she must go into the 
yard, to examine its cleanliness and the white- 
washed stepping-stones and the profusion of 
roses. And Prilla Hicks and the Rogans and 
Croyes and McGinleys and Fischers came out to 
greet and welcome her. 

Oh, it was a wonderful, joyous home-coming! 

Mrs. Callahan laughed and wiped the tears 
from her cheeks and talked and listened and 
rocked — with her feet on the pink-and-tan rug 
which Lois had insisted on transferring from her 
bedside to her mother's room. 

At last, Mrs. Callahan glanced at the clock 
and started. 

“Why didn't you tell me the time?" she de- 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 295 

manded reproachfully of every one in general. 
“I ought to have been in the kitchen long ago.” 

“Peggy’s there.” 

“Peggy says for you to stay here.” 

“Peggy don’t want you in there till supper- 
time.” 

Mrs. Callahan looked from one speaker to an- 
other. “Why, but — I was countin’ on givin’ you 
a real good supper,” she said. 

Mr. Callahan pulled her back to the rocking- 
chair and kept his arm around her. “No,” he 
said. “You wait. Wait! Peggy’ll fix us some 
kind of supper.” 

When the bell rang, Mrs. Callahan was ush- 
ered into the kitchen dining-room and her family 
enjoyed her surprise, her amazement, her won- 
der, her delight, her pride, at the supper which 
was Peggy’s unaided handiwork. 

There never were lighter biscuits. There nev- 
er was crisper bacon. There couldn’t be better- 
seasoned slaw. The potatoes were cooked just 
right, to be bursting their jackets so. The coffee 
was as clear and strong as if Mrs. Callahan her- 
self had made it. As for the rice pudding, it 
was mixed just right and baked just right and 
altogether it was the most delicious rice pudding 
that was ever made. Mrs. Callahan confessed 
she had feared Peggy would ruin the tablecloth, 


296 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

but it was as well washed and ironed as her own 
hands could have done. And to think her chil- 
dren were using napkins, like the Presidents own 
folks! 

The red roses on the table were not brighter 
than the faces of the reunited family around it. 

But alas! all at once gloom fell, like a dark 
shadow, on those happy faces. 

Mrs. Callahan was the innocent cause. 

“And I told that head nurse/’ she said merrily, 
“that if doctor didn’t agree to my cornin’ home 
this week, I’d run off and come anyway. And 
she wanted to know why I was so set on cornin’ 
right now. And I told her next week was school- 
breakin’-up and I was countin’ on seein’ my 
Peggy get the scholarship prize.” 

That was the one subject which they had avoid- 
ed during these first happy home hours. But 
after a silent minute, every one except Peggy 
spoke at once. No one looked at Peggy. 

“Albert ain’t half as smart as our Peggy,” de- 
clared Mr. Callahan. 

“It’s a mean shame not to give her the prize. 
Just because Albert got a few little better marks 
on things,” said Jed, indignantly. 

“Sure it is !” agreed Elmore. 

“If it had been anybody but Albert, I’d have 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 297 

fought him for taking it from Peggy/’ Jed went 
on. 

Mrs. Callahan looked around in surprise. “It’s 
funny — and sorter nice — to hear you boost your 
sister, ’stead of knockin’ her. I guess Peggy’ll 
get it and ” 

“No, no,” said Peggy, in the smallest possible 
voice. 

“Everybody knows Peggy ought to have had 
it,” Jed continued to grumble. 

“She’s just skeered ’cause the time’s come. I 
bet ” began Mrs. Callahan. 

“No’m,” Peggy interrupted again. “Jed heard 
Mr. Barnes say Albert got it.” 

“He came in after school. I was writing a 
kept-in exercise,” Jed explained at length. “He 
asked Miss Ellis for the hist’ry marks. He run 
his eyes over ’em and says, 'That settles it. Al- 
bert Fischer first. Millie Blake second.’ And 
Miss Ellis says, 'What about Peggy Callahan?’ 
I bet she wanted Peggy to get it. He says, 
'Third.’ And she says, 'Peggy’s done good work, 
and under diff’culties.’ ” 

“Never mind, ma.” Peggy could speak at last. 
“We — we can’t grudge Albert anything. He 
wants to take the business course. He needs the 
money, too. And he’s worked awful hard.” 

“One prize is ’nough for him. I wish he hadn’t 


298 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

pulled me out of Black Water Hole/' said El- 
more, viciously. 

“Elmore!” reproved his mother. Then she 
hastened to agree with Peggy. “Sure we can't 
grudge him. It makes me shiver and shake to 
think ” 

Then at once all began to talk about the adven- 
ture at the quarry. 

Bedtime was marked by an incident which, 
unsuspected by Mrs. Callahan, meant more for 
the family welfare than even her husband's re- 
established credit. 

She glanced at the clock and said hastily, 
“Sakes, children ! It's past your bedtime. Go to 
bed, all of you.” 

There arose the old chorus, so familiar to her. 

“I ain't sleepy.” 

“Oh, ma ! let us stay up a while longer !” 

“Just till nine o'clock.” 

“Ma, I've got to tell you about ” 

“I was so busy lookin' at you, I forgot the 
time,” said Mr. Callahan. “Bedtime. You kids 
go to bed.” 

They were getting up, reluctantly but promptly, 
when their mother interceded for them. 

“Let 'em set up a little while longer, Johnnie,” 
she said. “They don't want to go to bed.” 

“I ain't sleepy,” repeated Finn. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 299 

“Not one bit,” said Susie, with emphasis. 

“Yes, pa.” “Please.” Jed and Elmore added 
their petition to their mother’s. 

“Bedtime. Go to bed,” repeated Mr. Callahan. 

And without another word the children went 
bedward. 

“Why, what’s the matter?” Mrs. Callahan 
wondered. “Sometimes I beg them children a 
struck hour to go to bed. And — why, they mind- 
ed you right away.” 

“Sure,” said Mr. Callahan, surprised in his 
turn. “What’s the sense of tellin’ ’em to do a 
thing if they ain’t got to do it? And if they got 
to do what they don’t want to do the quicker it’s 
done the better off they are.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


F OR weeks, Peggy had known that the 
scholarship prize was not for her; and yet, 
with every reason and fact against her, she 
had clung to a forlorn hope. The prize might be 
divided. There might be a second prize. Or — 
or — something might happen. Now at last her 
hopes were definitely checked. Her thoughts led 
her along unpleasant paths. She would have to 
stop school and get a place as cash girl. Even 
with her father at steady work help would be 
needed to support the family and spare her 
mother overwork. Peggy was the only child of 
age and ability to work. If only she had won that 
prize! 

“One thing sure/’ she said to her mother, “Pm 
not going to school-closing. Albert got the prize 
and I ain’t the one to grudge it to him. But I 
can’t go there and see it given to somebody else, 
after I’ve been working so hard for it.” 

“Of course not,” agreed her mother. “It’s a 
shame. You ought to have had it. And Johnnie 
says you worked so good.” 

300 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 301 

“Albert earned it. His marks were highest. 
He ought to have it,” said Peggy. “Ma, what 
makes — I wish you wouldn’t — why don’t you call 
pa ‘Jdm’ ?” 

“John?” repeated Mrs. Callahan, bewildered. 

“Yessum. ‘John’ ; ’stead of ‘Johnnie’. ‘John’ 
sounds — well, it sounds better. Like Mrs. Hicks 
says, ‘Johnnie’ sounds babying.” Peggy floun- 
dered over an explanation. 

Mrs. Callahan laughingly told Prilla Hicks 
about this request, as they were hanging out 
clothes and talking across yards to each other, 
according to their Monday custom. 

“Ain’t children got funny notions?” she com- 
mented. “Seems like she thought you liked 
‘John’ best. She said ‘Johnnie’ sounds like a 
babying name.” 

Prilla was, as Peggy said, “a great advice 
giver.” But she hesitated a second. She said 
afterward, “she had a mind to eat her own words ; 
but she had said time and again she was going 
to give Mrs. Callahan a full dose and now Mrs. 
Callahan had opened her mouth for it.” 

So Prilla said, “Well, I said that and I said 
more, too. I’m goin’ to tell you the truth, Mrs. 
Callahan. I said — and I’ll die by it — it don’t do 
to baby a man. You’ve got to let him be a man. 
I ask you plain, Mrs. Callahan, when you call a 


302 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

big, blowsy, two-fisted man ‘Johnnie/ what, in the 
name of goodness, can you expect of him?” 

“Wh-what?” said Mrs. Callahan. 

“It’s the talk of the neighbors what a smart 
man Mr. Callahan’s got to be,” Prilla went on. 
“He’s come home reg’lar, with all his wages, and 
looked out for his fambly, and made ’em mind. 
Ain’t no better fambly man than he done got to 
be. For why? His place was empty and he was 
man enough to step in his own shoes. But if you 
take one job off him and then another job and 
then another — first thing you know, he’ll be back 
where he used to was. I tell you for your good, 
Mrs. Callahan.” 

“Why, why, men folks need to be tooken care 
of,” stammered Mrs. Callahan. 

“Give him good cookin’ and give him praise,” 
advised her neighbor. “But leave him know he’s 
got to stand under his job.” 

Mrs. Callahan did not take the advice all at 
once, but it was leaven and it worked. 

The days rolled around and brought the even- 
ing on which the school prizes were to be 
awarded. 

When the other little Callahans heard that 
Peggy was not going to the hall, with one voice 
they, too, declared against going. But Peggy 
said, and her father seconded her, that it would 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 303 

not do for them to stay away. She even per- 
suaded her mother to go. “We don’t want to 
look grudging to Albert/’ she said. That would 
be too mean and ungrateful. 

And Peggy carefully drilled Jed and Elmore. 
“You must be with the first to go up and shake 
his hand and say, T congrat’late you. I am proud 
of your success/ And if — if any one, if he — 
should happen to ask about me, just say, being as 
ma’s back such a little while — no! You just say 
I couldn’t come.” Peggy’s voice trembled. 

Jed surprised her and himself by giving her a 
bear hug. “You’re a brick, Peggy, — prize or no 
prize.” 

Peggy helped the other children dress. She ar- 
ranged her mother’s hair in a becoming new fash- 
ion. She brushed her father’s coat and tied his 
cravat. And meanwhile she tried to chat about 
homely little matters, but over the most indiffer- 
ent remarks her voice would tremble and her 
eyes grow misty. 

Her father went out and came back with a box 
of candy, an ornate box trimmed with a broad 
scarlet ribbon, with a transparent top to display 
its green and pink and silvered bonbons. He pre- 
sented it with a flourish and a kiss. 

“Treats for Peggy,” he said. 

Peggy’s eyes filled with tears and she clung 


304 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

around his neck. Then she disappeared into her 
room. 

“Let her alone,” her mother said wisely, when' 
Susie would have followed. “She can’t help cry- 
in’ some. Don’t take notice of her.” 

To the amazement of all, just as they were 
about to start, Peggy emerged, red-eyed but ar- 
rayed in her white dimity frock. 

“I’m ready,” she said simply. 

“Why, Peggy !” and “But you said ” began 

Jed and Elmore in a breath. Mrs. Callahan 
shook her head at them in vain. 

“Shut up!” Mr. Callahan commanded. “Let 
Peggy alone. If she chooses to go, she goes.” 

In no holiday mood the Callahan family went 
to the school hall, but they made valiant efforts 
to chat and smile with their neighbors. 

First, the grade marks were read out and then 
a list of the honor pupils. The principal paused 
to commend Peggy Callahan, whose name stood 
third on the list, for “excellent work under pecul- 
iar difficulty.” Then the winner of the scholar- 
ship medal and prize was named — Albert Fischer. 

And then — then — somehow Peggy was the first 
to reach Albert. 

“I congrat’late you,” she said heartily. “You 
deserve it. I congrat’late you, with all my 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 305 

heart. But I worked you hard sometimes, didn’t 
I?” 

“Indeed, yes,” Albert said, clasping Peggy’s 
hand. “You make me glad, Peggy.” 

“It just came over me how I’d feel,” Peggy 
explained to her surprised mother, when she re- 
sumed her seat. “He’d have felt so bad if I had 
sulked. I ought to be glad. Ain’t it funny? 
Now I’ve said that to Albert, I am glad for him.” 

The last thing on the program was the award 
of the Dickson prize. 

Mr. Dickson rose, smiling and friendly and em- 
barrassed, as usual. He plunged into his usual 
speech about how he made his way from the cor- 
ner grocery “up to where I am now” — and there 
were the sparkling rings and the massive watch- 
chain and the new, expensive evening clothes to 
illustrate “where.” He loved the school children, 
he believed in them, and it was a joy to find that 
they were even better and braver and more de- 
serving of hero prizes than he had expected — 
and people had said that he was expecting too 
much. 

“Why, there was one little girl ” and he 

told about Lucy Martin’s prompt succor of her 
sister. Then he paused and fingered his watch 
chain, inviting the applause which she deserved. 
“And a brave deed was that of the boy who ” 


306 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

There followed the story of Jim Alwood’s rescue 
of his comrade from the canal. Again Mr. Dick- 
son paused. He mopped his brow while the deed 
received its meed of popular praise. Then he 
said, "And it is my privilege to describe another 

gallant act ” Tim Barney’s rescue of the 

little Baileys. 

During the applause that followed, the school 
children nudged one another. 

"Now! Now he’ll tell about Albert.” 

"And give him the prize.” 

Mr. Dickson began again. "And a deed of 
signal heroism ” 

Peggy smiled and nodded significantly to Al- 
bert. He turned red and tried to hide behind a 
post, while Mr. Dickson told about the coura- 
geous, level-headed rescue at the quarry. But, 
after the prolonged applause at the end of the 
story, he did not, as every one expected, summon 
Albert to receive the prize. He looked down at 
the excited faces with a quizzical smile that said 
he had a surprise for them. The best — oh, by far 
the best! — was yet to come. His smile faded 
into affectionate earnestness, and he leaned for- 
ward, as if to get nearer with words that he 
wished to put, not merely in the ears, but in the 
hearts of every one in the hall. 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 307 

“The most heroic deed of all was performed by 
this brave boy’s schoolmate.” 

The Westside children looked amazed. There 
must be a mistake. The quarry adventure had 
been the only thrilling event of their school year. 

That was true. 

“This child did not rescue any one from a run- 
away horse, a speeding motor car, devouring 
flames, or death by drowning. Her deed was not 
described and lauded in newspapers. It made no 
more noise than sunlight, and it was just as sweet 
and wholesome as sunlight. 

“It was discovered — by me, in fact — in a casual 
way. I was dining at a Georgetown home and 
an incident was related about — ah! just about a 
cup on the table. The story interested me. It 
interested me so much that I made inquiries about 
the girl who was concerned in the incident. And 
I found out — what I believe she has not suspected 
to this very minute — that this girl is a heroine. 
Yes, a true heroine! And what did she do? 
Why, she met the difficulties and hardships and 
dangers of everyday life with steady courage and 
cheerful self-sacrifice. 

“I reported the case to the committee, and all 
three of the gentlemen agree with me that this 
girl ought to receive the prize, and so the award 
is unanimously made. But if they did not” — 


308 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

Mr. Dickson threw formality to the winds and his 
voice rang out in friendly defiance — “if not one 
of the committee had voted for her, just the same 
I should unhesitatingly award the prize to this 
brave girl. 

“While her mother was ill at a hospital and her 
father laid up with a broken ankle” — Peggy 
started — “this brave young girl bore on her 
shoulders the burden of her family. She cooked, 
washed, mended, cared for her small brothers and 
sisters, and succored them in error and in illness. 
And, moreover, she was so efficient in school work 
that she ran the winner of the scholarship prize 
a hard race. During long and difficult months, 
this girl saved and kept a home. I am proud of 
such a girl in America, in Washington, here in 
this school. It is an honor and a privilege and 
a joy to award this prize to — Miss Peggy Calla- 
han!” 

There was an instant’s amazed silence. Then 
Dr. Malone’s red head bobbed up in the back of 
the hall. “Three cheers for Peggy Callahan!” 
he shouted like a schoolboy. “Hip, hip, hurray !” 
And the hall rang and echoed and reechoed with 
cheers for the heroine of everyday life. 

As Peggy seemed too amazed to move, her 
father led her forward to receive the medal and 
the purse of gold pieces. She stammered her 


PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 309 

thanks, turned to kiss her father, and then darted 
back to throw herself in her mother’s arms. 

Albert Fischer elbowed his way among the 
friends and strangers crowding around Peggy. 
“I gratulate you,” he said, grasping her hand, 
his face shining like a full moon. “I am so glad, 
so glad, so glad !” 

Anne Lewis came up, too jubilant at first for 
sentences. “Oh, Peggy ! It’s the loveliest — Isn’t 
it the splendidest — Peggy, you precious ! Oo-ee ! 
You hero, you dear hero ! And you are, you are ! 
And now you can go to school. You can take the 
business course and be a stenographer.” 

Peggy, who had been beaming with joy, sud- 
denly sobered. “Be a stenographer,” she fal- 
tered. “Do — do I have to?” 

“Why, no,” said Anne. “But you can. As you 
want to. Just as if you had the prize you worked 
for.” 

Peggy laughed happily. “That was the only 
bad thing about that prize. But it was better than 
having to stop school. Of course I never thought 
of getting this. Now I can take domestic science. 
That’s what I love — about home things. And 
whoever got that scholarship prize had to take the 
business course.” 

Anne looked her amazement. “Yes. As you 


310 PEGGY OF ROUNDABOUT LANE 

said — on that nutting party last fall — you wanted 
to do more than anything in the world.” 

Peggy laughed again. “How queer, Anne! 
It’s funny you think I said that. You must have 
dreamed it. Anyway, everything's all right 
now.” 


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